Four subsidiary banking units of the Bahrain based leading Islamic banking group Al Baraka Banking Group B.S.C. (ABG) received the "Best Islamic Bank" Award of 2012, as part of the annual awards that the Global Finance magazine, which is specialized in banking and finance, awards to banks and financial institutions. These banking units are Banque Al Baraka D'Algerie as the Best Islamic Bank in Algeria, Jordan Islamic Bank as the Best Islamic Bank in Jordan and Al Baraka Islamic Bank Bahrain as the Best Islamic Bank in Bahrain and Al Baraka Bank Limited as the Best Islamic Bank in South Africa, in addition to Jordan Islamic Bank as Best Islamic Retail Bank. The winning of this award by the four subsidiary banking units of ABG was announced in a final result statement by the magazine's Award Committee, which included in its membership, a number of economists and editors of Global Finance, international financial advisors and a number of bank managers and experts in the field of banking. The Al Baraka units received this award for their prominent role in the Islamic banking sector, their ability to achieve consistent growth in the future and meeting professional standards in terms of the quality of products and services offered to clients, as well as for their originality and innovation in services and customer service, continued development and innovation in banking operations and other important criteria such as strategic relationships, geographic reach, profitability and robustness of financial position. The awards were received by Mr. Mohamed Essa Al Mutaweh, board member and CEO of Al Baraka Islamic Bank on behalf of the wining Group's units in a ceremony held in Tokyo at the same time as the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank and was attended by large audience of regional and international officials and banking leaders. On this momentous occasion, Mr. Adnan Ahmed Yousif, President & Chief Executive of Al Baraka Banking Group said: "We are very happy with the achievement of four of our banking units in winning this international award, which reflects the leading status that these units enjoy in their countries. These awards come to affirm the excellent performance of these units and the good reputation they have in the Islamic banking sector at the local, regional and international levels. The awards also reflect the success of Al Baraka Banking Group's vision and strategy which are based on enhancing the positions of subsidiary units, strengthening their capital resources and creating strong business relationships between the units, as well as coordinating the business policies and the management of risks and operations and other factors, which create strong and consolidated group". The President & Chief Executive of the Group added "the subsidiary banking units of our Group, through their long history in countries where they operate, have come to be amongst the leading financial institutions in servicing their communities and are most established in terms of their expertise and knowledge of the local markets, which has enabled them to achieve rapid expansion in terms of number of branches and to offer more innovative and high quality products, and the Group owns 13 banking units and representative offices, which in turn, own 400 branches." Mr. Adnan Ahmed Yousif concluded his statement by expressing his thanks and appreciation to the executive management and all employees of the four banking units for their continuing efforts in raising the status of their units and the Group as a whole at the local, regional and international level. He stressed that such achievements put before us, a great responsibility, which requires us to make further efforts to develop and perfect our Islamic banking products and services in such a way to meet the needs of the communities in which we operate. Mr. Mohamed Essa Al Mutaweh, Board Member and CEO of Al Baraka Islamic Bank expressed his pleasure for winning this prestigious award especially in the light of the fact that the award came at a time when we make large efforts to devote our presence locally and regionally through expansion in branch network and launching more creative products and services, in addition to entering into important finance deals on the regional level and developing our operational environment. Al Baraka Banking Groupis a Bahrain Joint Stock Company Licensed as an Islamic Wholesale Bank by Central Bank of Bahrain, listed on Bahrain Bourse and Nasdaq Dubai stock exchanges. It is a leading international Islamic bank providing its unique services to around one billion people and with Standard and Poor's investment grade long term counterparty credit rating of BBB- / A-3 (Short Term). Al Baraka offers retail, corporate, treasury and investment banking services, strictly in accordance with the principles of the Islamic Shari'a. The authorized capital of Al Baraka is US$1.5 billion, while total equity amounts to about US$1.8 billion. The Group has a wide geographical presence in the form of subsidiary banking Units and representative offices in fifteen countries, which in turn provide their services through more than 400 branches. Al Baraka is currently having a strong presence in Jordan, Tunisia, Sudan, Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Indonesia, Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
