Strategic moves paying off says Ithmaar Bank

MANAMA: Ithmaar Bank remains firmly committed both to its shareholder and to Bahrain, and has delivered on the promises it made last year by significantly increasing its income and dramatically expanding its retail banking network in spite of the unprecedented challenges of 2011.

"In line with that commitment, we invested tremendous amounts of time, effort and money throughout 2011 in expanding our retail network and improving our offerings," he said.

The results

"The results, this year, from our Islamic retail banking operations fully bear out our decision - the contribution of retail banking to revenue is the largest amongst internal business units.

"We as well increased our branch and ATM networks, invested in personnel development and improved a number of core systems," he said.

Earlier this year, Mr Bucheerei announced that, as part of its ambitious expansion plans, the bank is increasing its focus on research and has adopted a bold new three-year IT strategy.

"The new strategy focuses on the four mega trends in research that will shape our collective futures - cloud computing, social computing, mobile computing and information management - and sets an ambitious road map that will see the bank completely restructure its IT department, adding new roles and eliminating legacy applications.

The strategy will

"The strategy will, in turn, contribute directly and in a very significant way to Ithmaar Bank's growth and the way it conducts its business," said Mr Bucheerei.