Al Hilal Bank is one of the largest and the most rapidly developing and growing banks of the United Arab Emirates. It was founded on the nineteenth of June in 2008. The bank’s headquarters are based in Abu Dhabi. Al Hilal Bank is owned by the government of the UAE. The bank’s total revenue is nearly two billion UAE dirham and its net profit is around three hundred and forty million UAE dirham according to the data of the end of 2013.
This Islamic bank I supported by eight hundred employees. Al Hilal Bank performs wholesale, investment, corporate and treasury operations. It has approximately eighty thousand clients. Its twenty two branches and one hundred and thirty ATMs function all over the territory of United Arab Emirates. Besides, Al Hilal Bank operates three of its branches in Kazakhstan.
The strategy the Al Hilal Bank is to improve and assist the rapid growth of the economy of the United Arab Emirates. Moreover, as one of the biggest state banks Al Hilal carries a purpose of promoting the reputation of Islamic banking on the world’s business and finance arena. Al Hilal Bank puts its strategy into practice by means of improving its interactions with the customers and providing better and more comfortable services. One of the tools and instruments Al Hilal Bank employs to follow its strategy is its Financial Mall branch, which is known to be the largest banking branch in the world.
The facility of this branch is located in Al Sahel Tower in Abu Dhabi and is designed as a shopping mall. To increase the level of comfort for the diverse clients the branch owns special sections for women, children and youth, it also has a private zone for VIP clients. In addition, the Mall is equipped with a coffee shop, a lounge for the state telecommunications, an airline desk, and an auto showroom. Al Hilal Bank also provides insurance services through its Takaful unit, while Al Hilal Auto unit employs special ”Walk In Drive Out” Program.
Al Hilal Bank first opened in 2008, and in 2010 the bank’s performance was challenged by the world’s financial crisis. In spite of all difficulties and obstacles the young and developing company managed to save its revenues and continues its growth. The strategy of Al Hilal Bank back then was mainly directed and expansion of branches. In 2008 the total number of Al Hilal branches reached nineteen.
The following years Al Hilal Bank was focused on the development of its ATM network. Through the next three years the number of the bank’s ATMs grew by one third of its initial number. This strategy was employed in order to increase the level of accessibility of the bank and its services and gain my customers this way. Besides, the operational system of the ATMs was simplified in order to further expand the bank’s customer base.
Al Hilal Bank’s flexibility, endurance, and great management were demonstrated in 2010 when the bank had to deal with the world’s financial crisis. The bank did not let its clients down, on the contrary, it continued to expand and develop, raising the level of its customer service to the world class standards. The bank combines corporate presence with a personal banking that is fully fledged, it also performs wealth management operations.
The challenges Al Hilal Bank faced were the lack of self-service channel, unreliability of ATMs, which operated through high costs and were based on a complex system. Al Hilal managers focused their efforts on solving these issues in order to make the bank services easier to use and more available, which immediately improved the number of the bank’s customers as the reduction of ATM fees attracted more people. The bank’s self service channel added to the bank’s customer base by means of providing an advanced set of transactions and promoting the bank’s reputation.
The responsibility of the prosperity and development of Al Hilal Bank majorly belongs to its Wholesale Banking Group that is designed to play the most important role of financing the bank’s most critical projects of both Governmental and non-Governmental value. Due to these projects the bank also earned the positive reputation among its partners, clients and peers. Al Hilal Investment Banking group is responsible for all the investment projects and operations. Its investment solutions are directed at attracting more customers. Since Al Hilal is an Islamic bank, it is determined to perform Sharia compliant investment programs.
Due to the successful strategic planning and employment of various tools designed to please the customers and improve the bank’s reputation on the Islamic and world’s financial arena, Al Hilal Bank has shown robust results and solid improvement through the years of its work, in spite of the financial crisis and created many complications for the young financial organisation. An important part of Al Hilal Bank’s mission was to promote its Islamic identity, which was done successfully and in 2010 the bank won an award and was named the Best Islamic Retail bank.
Al Hilal also formulated its governance framework by means of starting management committees and providing policies designed to strengthen the organisation’s framework. Over the year of 2010 Al Hilal Bank demonstrated rapid growth and outperformed all other banks of the United Arab Emirates demonstrating thirty seven perfect of total financing growth in the country. Currently the bank performs a large rate of functions such as legal, investment, human capital, personal banking, information technology and risk management. It also is controlled and monitored by a Sharia board.
As a splendid result of several years of Al Hilal Bank’s operation many innovations were integrated. For example, Al Hilal is responsible for the unique project of Emirate ID cards, which are the smartcards for the national identification of UAE. These cards make procedures such as opening new accounts and accomplishing ATM transactions much easier and more organised. Al Hilal started world’s very first mobile bank working without emissions, founded the first children’s branch in the UAE.
Besides, the bank is responsible for the first thumb verification system managing banking operations and transactions. It established the first drive though banking branch in the Middle East and in-bank vending machine for gold. Al Hilal is one of the most progressive banks of the United Arab Emirates, it works through the employment of the latest technologies and being in step with the latest and most advanced innovations of our times.
Al Hilal has proved its devotion to its VIP customers. For years it has been oriented at promoting and strengthening its brand by means of getting attention of the richest customers of the country. The bank’s success is obvious. At the same time, the bank’s customer base includes many middle class people, so it is recommended that the bank works on its accessibility and policies for less wealthy non-VIP clients.