Middle East

AFRICA REGIONAL WINNER Standard Chartered COUNTRY WINNER Algeria Arab Banking Corporation Algeria Angola BES Angola Botswana Standard Chartered Bank Botswana Cote d’Ivoire Ecobank Ethiopia NIB International Bank Gambia Trust Bank Ghana Ghana Commercial Bank Guinea International Commercial Bank Kenya Barlcays ...

NEW YORK, July 21, 2009 — Global Finance has announced the First Round winners in the “World’s Best Internet Banks” competition in the Middle East and Africa. This is the 10th year Global Finance has named the World’s Best Internet ...

Roundup   By Gordon Platt   While the world's attention was focused on the post-election violence in Iran last month, political developments in neighboring Iraq took a happier turn. Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi central government worked out an agreement ...

REGIONAL REPORT: Gulf Cooperation Council   Financial services firms in the GCC region are poised to take advantage of an impending global recovery.   By Gordon Platt     The global economic and financial crisis arrived late in the six ...

REGIONAL REPORT: Gulf Cooperation Council   The UAE economy is well on the road to recovery, one of its biggest boosters says.   By Gordon Platt   Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, speaker of the house of the Federal National Council, ...

Global Finance selects the winners in a fast-growing area of finance that combines investing according to the tenets of Islamic law with modern financial products and systems.   By Laurence Neville For a brief moment it seemed that the world ...

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the US-based private equity firm, received a license to operate from the Dubai International Financial Center.   By Gordon Platt   The building in which the firm, whose 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco was chronicled in ...

The real liquidity crisis in the Middle East, as well as in parts of Asia and Africa, is the shortage of water, according to a report by Standard Chartered Bank. Consumption of fresh water must be strictly limited to the ...

DR NEWS Byblos Bank, one of the leading banks in Lebanon, listed its global depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange, which now trades 37 companies based in the Middle East. Byblos Bank, which has expanded rapidly into international markets ...

MIDDLE EAST REGIONAL REPORT RECESSION PROOF Saudi Arabia epitomizes the trend toward big spending on infrastructure by oil-rich nations that is keeping their economies afloat. By Gordon Platt The Middle East is not immune to the effects of the global ...

MIDDLE EAST REGIONAL REPORT   In Dubai and other financial centers around the Middle East, there are increasing signs that prudence and a focus on Islamic financing are paying off.     Sulaiman: Middle East economy is in a better ...

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia shook up his cabinet in February, appointing a new central bank governor, as well as new education, justice, information and health ministers and naming a woman as a ...

BYBLOS BANK LISTS IN LONDON; FIRST LEBANESE FIRM IN 12 YEARS Byblos Bank, one of the leading banks in Lebanon, listed its global depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange, which now trades 37 companies based in the Middle East. ...

AFRICA REGIONAL WINNER Standard Bank COUNTRY WINNER Angola BES Angola Botswana Standard Chartered Bank Botswana Cote d’Ivoire Ecobank Ethiopia NIB International Bank Gambia Trust Bank Ghana Ghana Commercial Bank Guinea International Commercial Bank Kenya Barlcays Bank Kenya Libya Al-Wahda Bank ...

GLOBAL BANKS Corporate Bank JPMorgan Chase Consumer Bank HSBC Private Bank Credit Suisse Asset Management State Street Global Advisors Custody The Bank of New York Mellon Investment Bank Goldman Sachs Cash Management Citi Trade Finance BNP Paribas Foreign Exchange Deutsche ...

MIDDLE EAST       All change: GCC countries hope to adopt a single currency   At the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Oman in December, Gulf Arab leaders approved a monetary union to be implemented by the end ...

MIDDLE EAST     Trouble in paradise: Dubai feels the chill of a global recession. Property prices on Dubai’s upscale Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island shaped like a palm tree, fell sharply late last year. Construction work on the Trump ...

MIDDLE EAST Determined to avoid repeating past mistakes, oil-rich nations in the Middle East have worked hard to diversify their economies. So far they have fared well, but pitfalls remain.   Oil is integral to the Middle East's economic fortunes, ...

MIDDLE EAST     Dubai's International Financial Exchange: Simplifying access. In an effort to stimulate more trading by local investors, the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) is now allowing companies to list, trade and clear in UAE dirhams, as well ...

MIDDLE EAST         Safa: Credit crunch could boost sukuk in the longer term. Asudden slowdown in the issuance of sukuk, or Islamic bonds, could be the result of the global credit crunch, a ruling by a committee ...