Significant performance of aiBank under Tamer Seif Al-Din Leadership

The Arab Investment Bank's indicators have seen strong growth over the past year In particular, during Tamer Seif Al-Din's leadership as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the bank since he assumed executive leadership in January 2022, following the completion of Egyptian Financial Group Hermes Holding and the Sovereign Fund of Egypt acquisition of 76% of the bank's capital and increase its capital to the minimum limit required in accordance with the Banks Law of EGP 5 bn, up to the bank's most recent financial statements in December.

A monitoring conducted by First Bank on the development of aiBank indicators since Seif Al-Din assumed executive leadership revealed its success in transferring the bank from losses of EGP 871.08 million in 2021 to net profits of EGP 1.2 bn in 2023.

Net interest income jumped to EGP 2.5 bn in 2023, compared to EGP 1.1 bn in 2021, with growth of 128.2% and an increase of EGP 1.4 bn.

Net fees and commissions income increased by 653.4% during the period under analysis, registering EGP 907.6 million in 2023, compared to EGP 120.5 million in 2021.

At the level of the Arab Investment Bank's main portfolio, it has also recorded strong growth since Tamer Seif Al-Din took over, with the bank's asset portfolio jumping by 35.2%, reaching EGP 61.4 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 45.5 bn by the end of 2021, with an increase of EGP 16 bn.

He boosted the Bank’s loans remarkably, especially for corporates (including corporate and business banking), successfully attracting a large group of corporates towards to get loans from the Bank. As a result, the Bank’s corporate loans jumped by 103.2% in the period under analysis, reaching EGP 15.3 bn by the end of 2023, after EGP 7.5 bn by the end of 2021.

Despite his considerable support for corporates, he did not lose sight of the importance of supporting the retail banking sector. He sought to cope with the changes in this sector, and worked to introduce innovative products that attract a large segment; thus, the bank's retail loans jumped to EGP 7.5 bn by the end of December, compared to EGP 3.8 bn by the end of 2021, with a growth of 97.8%, and an increase of EGP 3.7 bn.

He has 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 to increase the volume of cooperation and fund more applicants to the Fund's declarations; It provides a loan of EGP 800 million 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 Mortgage Finance and to pay attention to the limited and middle-income categories.

In the SMEs sector, the Bank has successfully increased its financing portfolio allocated to these sectors to 30% of its total portfolio by the end of 2023, with 20% directed to small corporates, exceeding the Central Bank of Egypt's prescribed percentage of 25% of the total portfolio.

The efforts of Seif Al-Din in the finance market lead the total loans portfolio of aiBank to increase by EGP 11.5 bn, reaching EGP 22.8 bn by the end of last year, compared to EGP 11.3 bn by the end of 2021.

It is worth mentioning that although the Bank's expanded its loans, and succeeded in doubling the size of the portfolio, it also managed to reduce the distress rate to 5.68% by the end of last year, after registering 16.38% by the end of 2021.

He also managed to reduce the value of the Bank’s distress to EGP 1.3 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 1.9 bn by the end of 2021.

Tamer Seif Al-Din attracted a large group of depositors to the bank, which was shown in the growth of the total customer deposits portfolio by 31.4%, reaching EGP 50.9 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 38.7 bn by the end of 2021.

With regard to digital transformation, the Bank during Seif Al-Din’s leadership took significant steps regarding this file, as aiBank joined InstaPay to allow the Bank’s customers to transfer money instantly between accounts, cards and e-wallets through their phones.

A number of strategic partnership agreements have also been concluded with Visa, Valu, Meeza, InstaPay and Fawry to provide a range of innovative financial solutions.

Seif Al-Din also worked to increase the number of branches of aiBank from 31 branches by the end of 2021 to 33 branches by the end of 2023, in addition to the main center of Cairo. It is worth mentioning that he 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, stating that the number of its branches is planned to increase to 50 by the end of 2027, at the rate of 4 new branches each year, with the majority of them in the governorates applying the Bank's geographical spread policy.

He also aims to expand the ATM network from 90 machines by the end of 2023 to 190 machines by the end of 2027 to cover most critical areas, with the aim of providing an appropriate presence for easy access to customers at any time and any place supported by modern systems by the Bank.

Seif Al-Din's ambitions do not stop there, as he intends to change the identity and trademark of the bank so that the new identity will reflect a future image of trust of its existing and future customers in the bank, and it is intended to be finalized and officially announced by the end of September.

The experience of Seif Al-Din with the Arab Investment Bank received many praises, which was translated into a number of awards, most notably the "Fastest Growing Bank" from the World Union of Arab Bankers. It was also awarded “Best SME Financier” by the Africa Global Funds Service Providers Awards 2023.