The ongoing consolidation of the Arab world's largest banks and the meteoric rise of Egyptian lenders are two of the most noteworthy trends highlighted by The Banker's Top 100 Arab Banks rankings for 2020. Regional ambitions and fierce domestic competition in heavily banked markets in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) have prompted some landmark mergers across the bloc's financial sector in recent years, resulting in a shrinking class of banking giants and shaking up this year's top 10. The consolidation trend within the Gulf that began in earnest in 2016 is only set to continue into 2021 and beyond. The prospective merger of Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank (NCB) and Samba Finan- cial Group could create a super lender on the scale of regional giants Qatar National Bank (QNB) and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the latter itself the product of 2017's merger between Abu Dhabi's two leading banks.
展开▼
