(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

Emirates Islamic Bank is rationalising its branch network in the UAE as online banking is increasing in the country, a senior official said.

“We are rationalising our branches, given the fact that technology is taking over. But we don't want to eliminate the physical presence. Three months before, we were 45 branches; we are in the process of closing five, but we might open elsewhere, or we may invest whatever cost we save further into technology development to provide the customer service that is required,” said Mohammed Kamran Wajid, deputy CEO of Emirates Islamic.

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However, he ruled out any impact on the number of jobs in the bank due to branch closure.

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“We firmly believe in talent retention. Although we may be closing some branches, the talent is always welcome and absorbed and will be retained. We are the biggest employer in financial services with over 30,000 employees,” he said during a media briefing on Thursday.

Emirates Islamic is a subsidiary of Emirates NBD bank, the largest bank in the emirate of Dubai.

Emirates Islamic announced a record Dh3.2 billion profit before tax for the first nine months of 2025. Its total income rose nine per cent year-on-year to Dh4.5 billion, driven by continued expansion in both funded and non-funded income streams.

According to the LSEG Islamic Banking Report 2025, the UAE Islamic banking market size was $221 billion in 2024, which is likely to reach $352 billion in 2029, while the sukuk market is expected to grow from $100 billion to $175 billion during this period as the UAE's role as a global finance hub is drawing international Islamic flows.

He pointed out that some of them are legacy branches, whereby Emirates NBD and Emirates Islamic branches are very close to each other.

“Now that the systems are integrated, we can probably rationalise or redirect these or relocate to acquire more customers. So to answer five branches, we have decided to close, and we will close those five branches before the end of this year,” he said during a media interaction.

He revealed that the bank is highly liquid and has idle capital at its disposal. The bank also enjoys a very high capital adequacy ratio of 18.8 per cent - the second highest among the top 10 banks.

“Given our focus on customer service and digitisation, we aim to target the share from our competition... We see taking over the share of or from the competition, mainly in the corporate bank,” he said.

Going forward, the bank will remain focused on digitisation and AI integration.

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