Ahli United Bank of Kuwait bags two accolades

Ahli United Bank of Kuwait was accorded two awards at the International Finance Awards 2021 held in Dubai on March 25. Incidentally, the annual award ceremony organized by the International Finance Magazine reached its 10th edition this year in 2022.

Like every year, industry leaders from across the world were felicitated for their unmatched leadership and sector expertise after being identified by a dedicated pool of industry observers and researchers.

One of the award categories in which the bank emerged as a winner was IT Innovation.

Abdullah Jaragh, General ManagerInformation Technology for the bank bagged the award for his pivotal role in navigating the bank through the COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant hurdles. AUB had to face an overnight increase in demand for digital services and products. This swift turnaround by the bank helped it retain the confidence of its customer base.

Even before the pandemic, the bank had been focused on increasing its digital products and services portfolio. Not stopping at that, the bank under the IT leadership of Jaragh has not been shy to deploy emerging technologies like robotics for its service delivery. According to Jaragh, IT is an enabler to better serve the customers and scale innovation.

Under his leadership, the bank has always strived to enhance its customer experience and add value to its services. Not being reluctant about their progress, the IT team is constantly upgrading their core competencies and staying aware of new technologies. The IT department is composed of a small number of individuals with varied expertise.

The bank has also made adequate investments for all the necessary IT infrastructure to remain future-ready and has given thrust to security as well. The bank conducts thorough training programs for the entire staff on a regular basis to ensure that the bank does not fall prey to phishing attacks or any other forms of cyberattacks.

As an IT leader, Jaragh showed imagination in leadership and showcased a long-term vision to ensure that the bank’s human resources were up to face the challenges of the day. His leadership in addressing adverse conditions due to the impact of the pandemic helped the bank tide over the sudden crisis and increased demand. He was also able to provide the necessary information infrastructure to support the bank on its path to providing digital services and products in addition to its traditional services.

However, this achievement did not come as a surprise to his colleagues at the AUB. Abdullah boasts of a stellar career in the IT domain with experience spanning just short of four decades. Since his appointment in the bank, he has strived to work on business agility and elevate the operational resilience potential of the firm. He has worked consistently to keep the cost of IT investments at the minimum while delivering an optimal level of resource efficiency.

The other award for the bank came under the Best Liquidity Management Bank –Kuwait 2021 category. Abdullah AlLangawy, the bank’s General Manager-Treasury received the award for his role. AlLangawy has been instrumental in ensuring that the bank remains healthy liquidity depending on the market dynamics and macroeconomic conditions. The assets and liabilities committee has remained ductile through turbulent times and managed to maintain adequate liquidity. At the same time, the bank’s treasury team has ensured that the bottomline is not affected and confidence of the customer is never compromised.

Recently, Fitch Ratings gave the bank an ‘A’ rating with a stable outlook as part of its Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) amid the current global financial uncertainty.

The bank also recorded a net profit for 2021 amounting to KD 31.2 million, which is higher by 5.1% than KD 29.7 million in 2020. Fitch noted that AUBK's profitability metrics continue to recover, supported by a mild rebound in the bank's operating profit. The rating agency noted that these will be supported by improved operating conditions and higher profit rates in 2022.

This was possible because the bank had managed to achieve the lowest cost of funds in the market.

AlLangawy brings more than 16 years of prime banking experience including that in assets and liabilities management, investments and treasury sales, and derivative desks. Other than his responsibilities at AUB, he also serves on the Board of Directors and is a member of the Audit Committee at MEFIC Capital based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

His enviable professional journey is preceded by an equally enviable academic journey. He has an MBA degree from Maastricht Business School of Management and has completed PLD (program for leadership development) from the prestigious Harvard Business School and the Certificate of Investment management analysis and Investment Strategies Program from Wharton University.

The dot-com crisis destroyed several tech sector darlings that had dominated the 1990s