Despite a challenging backdrop with unprecedented financial market and geopolitical turmoil, all business units within our Treasury & Investments Group (Treasury) delivered strong results, with an operating income of AED 1.600 billion and operating profit before impairment allowances of AED 1.403 billion. Of particular note, revenue from trading activities grew by 48% year over year, adding meaningful diversity to the Bank's revenue streams. With Treasury's emphasis on core competencies and investment in cutting edge technology and talent, the growth prospects look promising.
At the core of all our business activities lies a strategy which is predicated on customer collaboration, rigorous risk management, innovative product development and investment in the talent and discipline of our staff. Treasury's success in dealing with the challenging liquidity environment and in improving efficiencies in responding to the fast-changing market and regulatory backdrop, stems from disciplined execution of this strategy. Early adaptation of international best practices around liquidity coverage, capital management and funding diversification has helped provide a stable platform for our other activities. In turn, the group has delivered strong, sustainable revenue and growth through continuous engagement with clients and delivering innovative product offerings.
Treasury achieved solid results in 2016 whilst calibrating the balance sheet against multiple regulatory obligations and dealing with markedly tighter funding conditions. Achieving sign-off on our processes around benchmark submissions and Basel III Liquidity Coverage Ratio has helped underpin our operations.
The Bank has successfully continued the buildup of its high quality liquid assets (HQLA) portfolio despite significant volatility in interest rate and credit markets, and has diversified our sources of funding from new markets, tenors, formats and currencies. This has allowed the Bank to achieve our stated objective of maintaining some of the strongest liquidity and capital ratios amongst our peer group.
As for wholesale funding, 2016 stands as ADCB's most successful year ever, raising over USD 3.3 billion in new funding. Wholesale funding is a critical element of ADCB's strategy for generating more stable and diversified term structure to its liability profile, and also paramount in terms of meeting the upcoming regulatory requirements for liquidity management.
2016 was a challenging year. The UAE's diversified economic base as well as structural reforms helped to soften the impact somewhat. However, liquidity in the region remained tight, with GRE (Government Related Entities) deposits in the UAE declining year on year. Treasury was effective in diversifying our funding base through innovations in funding formats and tapping existing markets more deeply by offering diverse opportunities to our established investor base.
In 2017, whilst the economic environment will likely remain challenging, our client-centric business model will continue to evolve, with the objective of becoming the partner of choice in the financial markets. Growth in our trading platform will be fostered to drive economies of scale and collaborative risk management in selling foreign exchange, derivatives and credit across our chosen markets. As always, we will remain watchful for structural and cyclical factors affecting our business and fine tune our operating models accordingly.
With less than a year before various far-reaching international regulatory changes come into effect, Treasury will continue to adjust our franchise and internal resource allocation to ensure that we deliver value to our shareholders over the long term. The challenges around liquidity, market volatility and regulatory evolution will need to be translated into opportunities through risk diversification, deeper client engagements and thought leadership. Across all our activities, Treasury will focus on putting our clients and other ADCB business groups at the forefront, whilst maintaining a steadfast approach to risk management and investment in talent and infrastructure.