Tamer Saif El-Din leads aiBank for the fastest growing lists in Egypt

Just less than two years, they were sufficient to restructure the Arab Investment Bank aiBANK, during which they witnessed remarkable movements in the size of their portfolios, and a significant positive shift in profitability levels, after net losses, to demonstrate the feasibility of the Financial Group Alliance Hermes Holding and The Sovereign Fund of Egypt acquisition of 76% of the Bank's capital, to be one of the successful deals concluded in recent years.

The journey was led by veteran banker Tamer Saif al-Din, Chief Executive Officer of Arab Investment, who chaired the Bank in January 2022, where he managed to significantly boost the volume of the Bank's assets to EGP 62.6 bn by the end of September 2023, compared to EGP 45.5 bn by the end of 2021, with a growth of 37.8% and an increase of EGP 17.2 bn.

He significantly boosted the Bank's financing, especially for enterprises (including microcredit for economic activities), successfully attracting a large group of companies towards obtaining funding from "Arab Investment", and in effect the Bank's loans to enterprises jumped by 130.74%, to EGP 17.3 bn by Q3 of 2023, up from EGP 7.5 bn by the end of 2021, with an increase of EGP 9.8 bn.

Despite his considerable support for corporate support, he did not lose sight of the importance of supporting the retail banking sector. He sought to keep abreast of the changes in this sector, and worked to introduce innovative products that attract a large class of them, until the bank's individual loans jumped to EGP 6.8 bn by the end of September 2023, compared to EGP 3.8 bn by the end of 2021, with an estimated growth rate of 79.5%, an increase of over EGP 3 bn.

He also signed several successful partnerships aimed at attracting the category of individuals Notably, the signing of a cooperation protocol with the Social Housing and Mortgage Finance Fund and the support of land finance to increase the volume of cooperation and fund more applicants to the Fund's declarations; It provides an estimated EGP 800 mn in funding for low and middle income groups in line with the Central Bank of Egypt's initiative to stimulate and encourage banks to expand in the field of real estate finance and to pay attention to the limited and middle-income.

Saif's efforts in the finance market resulted in a total loan portfolio of Arab Investment Bank by EGP 12.8 bn, surpassing the EGP 24 bn barrier by the end of Q3 of this year, compared to EGP 11.3 bn by the end of 2021, with growth of 113.54%.

Notwithstanding the bank's expansion of loans, and its success in doubling the size of the portfolio, it managed to reduce the distress rate to 5.87% by the end of September, reaching 16.38% by the end of 2021.

It also managed to reduce the value of the stumble in Arab Investment Bank to EGP 1.4 bn by Q3 of 2023, compared to EGP 1.9 bn by the end of 2021 despite significant increases in the size of the portfolio during this period.

Tamer Saif El-Din attracted a large group of depositors to the bank, which was shown in the growth of the total customer deposit portfolio by 36.3%, reaching EGP 52.8 bn by the end of September 2023, compared to EGP 38.7 bn by the end of 2021, with an increase of over EGP 14 bn.

Saif El-Din also worked to increase the number of branches of Arab Investment Bank from 31 branches by the end of 2021 to 33 branches by the end of September 2023, in addition to the main center in Cairo. It is worth mentioning that it aims to increase the number of branches of the Bank more.

In the latest report of the Board of Directors, the Bank revealed its expansion plan to strengthen its presence in the Egyptian banking market, explaining that it is planned to open two new branches this year.

In terms of digital transformation, significant steps have been taken at the level of this file, where "Arab Investment Bank" has joined the InstaPay payments network to allow customers to transfer funds instantly between accounts, cards and e-wallets through their mobile phones.

It also signed a long-term protocol with Visa, to provide an integrated package of the most recent products and services in the field of paid technology, to meet the needs of the Bank's customers.

Tamer Saif al-Din's efforts, in transforming the bank from a net loss of EGP 871.08 mn in 2021, resulted in a net profit of EGP 525.6 mn in 2022.

aiBank continued to achieve strong profits during this year, with net profits jumping by about 100% and an increase of EGP 400 mn, registering EGP 801.3 mn during the first 9M of 2023, compared to 401.3 mn during the same period in 2022.

According to this record performance, Temer Saif El-Din succeeded in placing "aiBank" in the ranks of Egypt's fastest-growing banks, this was revealed by the First Bank classification lists, which disclosed that the Bank topped listed the fastest-growing Banks list of net fees and commissions income during the first quarter of this year, and topped the First Bank Growth Index for the fastest-growing banks over the past year.

The bank also came out on top of the First Bank's list of fastest-growing net profits in 2022, and the fastest-growing bank lists of direct loans and enterprise loans during the same year.

Saif al-Din's experience with aiBank received many praises, which was translated into a number of awards, the most recent of which was the Bank's fastest-growing award from the World Union of Arab Bankers.