Treasury and Investments Group

We celebrated a strong year in Treasury with almost all our metrics on the rise in 2018, underpinned by a solid level of customer activity. Robust balance sheet management and a healthy investment book, coupled by FX trading opportunities and a growth in product sales yielded strong results across the year.

Net profit of AED 1.830 billion and operating income of AED 2.036 billion grew by 17% and 14% respectively over the previous year.

Over 2018, ADCB continued to be a leading UAE Bank with its liquidity management framework through the implementation of globally recognised practices. The liquidity framework aims to optimise the Bank’s balance sheet whilst adhering to Basel III liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) and net stable funding ratio (NSFR) regulatory measures.

In the capital markets, we delivered a number of landmark transactions that contributed to a very positive year. In the Swiss franc bond market, we completed two deals worth CHF 175 million and CHF 100 million and we returned to the US markets for a five-year USD 750 million 144A transaction.

Elsewhere we concluded a syndicated loan specifically for Asian banks that raised USD 590 million and we returned to the Taiwanese market for a USD 540 million Formosa bond issuance.

Our success in the global marketplace is a testament to the strength of our brand, as well as our growing international recognition and reputation. We remain active in the international bond and equity investor space where we typically hold more than 100 sessions and events to highlight the opportunities we can deliver.

The digital development we have seen across the Bank has been a growing benefit for us internally. Speed, accuracy and efficiency are crucial and following last year’s core banking system upgrade, we now have even better access to real-time information on financial markets, customer transactions and visibility on our risk profiles; all of which drive higher quality risk management outcomes and allow us to stay ahead of the regulatory curve. This year, we reviewed all our reporting processes and the metrics around them, as well as revalidating our risk appetite with the Board.

This transformation also helps us significantly in the marketplace. We have, for example, been able to better support the SME sector with FX accounts with our state-of-the-art FX platform, ‘Go Trade’. Users increased by 75% in 2018.