RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Al-Rajhi Bank, the largest Gulf Arab bank by market value, posted a third-quarter profit rise on higher income from lending and investment banking services.
The bank made SR1.76 billion ($468.5 million) in the three months to Sept. 30, up 3.7 percent from SR1.69 billion in the year earlier period, it said in a statement posted on the bourse’s website. Analysts’ forecasts for the third quarter ranged from SR1.75 billion to SR1.84 billion, according to a Reuters survey last month.
Rajhi’s net investment income — the equivalent of net income from lending in traditional banking — rose 7 percent in the third quarter to SR2.14 billion.
Banking services income rose 28 percent to SR568 million, it said, without giving details. Earnings per share at the end of the first nine months of this year were 3.4 riyals, up from SR3.25 a year earlier, it added. The bank raised its paid-up capital by 11.1 percent earlier this year through a bonus share issue. “The bank has...succeeded in diversifying sources of revenues and in developing investment and corporate banking sectors hand in hand with expanding retail banking activities,” Chief Executive Abdullah Sulaiman Al-Rajhi said.
