As the first emirate in the UAE to roll out mandatory health coverage, Abu Dhabi’s insurance sector has benefitted from over a decade of strong growth in both the life and general lines, with the UAE home to the region’s largest and most mature insurance market. Still, 2015 was a difficult year for the industry, as underwriters struggled with prevailing low global oil prices, increasing market...
UAE: Abu Dhabi Financial Services
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Chapter | Islamic Financial Services from The Report: Abu Dhabi 2017
Abu Dhabi’s sharia-compliant finance sector, traditionally led by its Islamic banking industry, has expanded to include an increasing array of activities in areas such as insurance offerings and asset management. An environment of low oil prices has put pressure on margins in 2016 but, with nearly a quarter of assets in the UAE held by sharia-compliant institutions, the industry is firmly...
Chapter | Capital Markets from The Report: Abu Dhabi 2017
Despite the headwinds of low oil prices and recent regional political turbulence, Abu Dhabi’s stock exchange put in a relatively strong performance in 2016, with the main index posting a 5% gain for the year. A sizeable sovereign bond sale also injected life into the emirate’s nascent debt market, reviving a yield curve that had been interrupted by a seven-year absence of sovereign issuances....
Despite undergoing a profitability squeeze in 2016, Abu Dhabi’s banking sector nonetheless demonstrated its ability to expand its asset base during a period of difficult economic conditions. A recovery in deposit growth means that liquidity concerns have abated, while the stabilisation of oil prices and continued expansion of the non-oil economy brought cheer at the outset of 2017. The sector...
While reduced oil prices are undoubtedly a concern for the emirate’s authorities, economic diversification efforts of recent years mean Abu Dhabi is well placed to weather a prolonged period of subdued prices. Vision 2030 meanwhile contains a raft of goals that will further reduce the emirate’s reliance on hydrocarbons, and continue to foster the emergence of a more sustainable and knowledge-based economy in the years ahead.
Economic update | Consolidation in financial services to increase Abu Dhabi’s global clout
16 May 2017
First announced in June 2016, a merger between National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) and First Gulf Bank (FGB) was finalised last month.