A bank with a greater vision Faisal Galadari, CEO of Al Masraf, ascribes the bank’s impressive growth in 2014 to customer relationships.
Faisal Galadari, CEO of Al Masraf.
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n business since 1976, Al Masraf focuses on corporate banking and trade finance, currently operating through a network of nine branches across the UAE and in Libya’s capital Tripoli. Al Masraf is jointly owned by the Federal Government of the UAE, Libyan Foreign Bank and Banque Extérieure d’Algérie and is the only bank in
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the country where the Federal Government of the UAE has a direct shareholding. Faisal Galadari was appointed as CEO in 2013 and has since led the bank through a major transformation journey with the main objective to reposition and strengthen the bank with a focus on customer engagement and retention.
“From the get-go, we put a three-year business road map in place, directing the growth of the bank,” he explains. “This covered customer segmentation, brand visibility, enhanced relationship-based banking initiatives, staff competency, and improved IT systems.” His plan proved fruitful with Al Masraf achieving a growth rate of 38% on loans and advances, seeing the net profit going up by 41% in 2014. In addition, the Non-Performing Loans Ratio was brought down from 23% to less than 9% using an innovative approach to deal with the bank’s impaired assets. “We dealt with each case based on its merits, and in deserving cases, we offered suitable restructuring concessions,” Galadari explains. “We believe in investing in continuous relationships with our customers, even when they are facing challenges. This has helped us in winning their loyalty and improve the overall health and growth of our lending portfolio.” Galadari further credits the significant 2014 results to the bank’s internal capacity strengthening strategies and carefully choosing its customers, along with a strong personalised service; “We believe that a dedicated service, with quicker decisions and continuous customer engagement are the key to our success.” To further improve services, the bank is re-launching its credit cards with attractive loyalty benefits, opening Islamic banking operations and increasing the network of branches and ATMs. Al Masraf’s 2014 growth rate was four times higher than the industry trend, both in asset booking and profitability, and Galadari is proud of what his team has accomplished in such a short time: “It would not have been possible without the guidance of the Board and the support of our staff. We may be a smaller bank, but we have a greater vision and we are already achieving significant growth.”