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The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), which celebrated 50 years of
its existence last year, was established in 1952 as the first
local and national bank and as the first Joint Stock Company in
Kuwait and the Gulf area.
NBK is the largest financial institution in the state of Kuwait.
It also enjoys the status of having the largest market share of
banking services. NBK’s offices and subsidiaries are located
in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Bahrain, Lebanon, Vietnam
and Thailand.
All NBK branches have online connections and offer various traditional
banking services, such as current and saving accounts, fixed deposits
and consumer lending. The bank has recently introduced new services
for all the sectors, including investment accounts, personal loans
and salary accounts.
NBK has been ranked among the largest 300 banks in the world
and the seventh in the Arab world in terms of capital, which exceeds
KD 380 million ($1.3 billion). In 1999, the bank generated a record
profit of $306 million and a return of 24.5 per cent on the shareholders
equity, with total assets equal to $12.4 billion.
This bank also has credit rating among banks in the Middle East
by internationally known agencies, including Moody’s, Standard
and Poor’s, Fitch IBCA and Capital Intelligence. To add an
extra feather in the cap, NBK has been given the ‘Euromoney’
award of excellence as ‘The Best Local Bank in the Middle
East’. It has also earned a nomination for being the ‘Best
Bank in Kuwait’ in the last six years. In the past too, NBK
has earned the reputation of being the ‘Best Small Bank in
the World’, and the ‘Best Bank in the Middle East’.
NBK manages the investment of its retail and corporate customers
through its subsidiaries, the National Bank of Kuwait (Suisse)
and the NBK Investment Management Company (NBKIM) which is located
in London and has a strategic alliance with the Morgan Stanley
Dean Witter Investment Management Limited. A variety of investment
funds, such as the ‘Watani Fund’, offer multiple choices
of asset management services that are tailored to fit the needs
of the prestigious NBK client list.
For more information, visit www.nbk.kw
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