Under the patronage of His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawwaf Al-Sabah, Kuwait Finance House (KFH) will inaugurate on March 24th the banking hall named after the late Ahmed Al-Yassin at KFH’s main office. The event will be attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mostafa Al-Shamali.
The hall will be named after Al-Yassin for his prominent role in establishing KFH with several others, in addition to the fact that he was the first chairman of KFH. Al-Yassin managed to lead the prestigious Islamic financial institution and set it on the right track, despite major challenges that faced the birth of KFH, not to mention numerous challenges facing the Kuwaiti and regional economy, including the Iraqi-Iranian war, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Moreover, the opening coincides with the 36th commemoration of the issuance of the Amiri decree to establish KFH on March 23rd 1977 as a Kuwaiti shareholding company. The government possesses 49% of KFH’s shares, and the remaining 51% are offered for IPO with a capital of KD 10 million.
It is worth noting that KFH is currently the biggest bank in Kuwait in market share, and has over 150 services, not to mention its businesses that various economic fields that allowed it to expand successfully locally, regionally, and globally; thus allowing Islamic banking to be an effective factor in the global economy.
Al-Yassin was born in 1928, and went to school with several prominent Kuwaiti figures, including the late Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad.
Kuwait Finance House (KFH) recorded remarkable indicators since it first started, which reflects the strength of its financial position and its ability to continue to grow. The majority of KFH financial indicators posted a remarkable growth during the last ten years, especially the last three years, where the bank maintained a balanced growth in its financial indicators, despite many challenges that faced the global economy and the local business environment.
The bank’s most prominent achievement is the growth of total assets in the budget to KD 14.7 billion at the end of last year, with an increase in total assets of about KD 2 billion in 2000. This growth indicates the success of the bank's policy that expands qualitatively and geographically, and enters into investment sectors that are lucrative and have low-risk in the markets.
The achievement is clear in steadily maintaining the growth rate over the years of financial crisis from the end of 2008 until 2011, despite the decline in asset values at the level of markets.
In terms of clients’ deposits, KFH has achieved a growth of KD 9.4 billion at the end of last year, with total deposits about KD 1.5 billion in 2000. The bank succeeded in achieving this increase due to the diversity of its deposits, both in terms of currency and time, as well as their returns. KFH is still the best bank in Kuwait in terms of returns on deposits, which led to gaining clients’ confidence and constantly increasing the number of deposits.
Furthermore, KFH credit portfolio grew from about KD 1 billion in 2000, to KD 7.1 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2011, which is more than KD 6 billion during this period at a rate of 521%.  Credit also maintained growth during the years of financial crisis by the end of 2008 and 2011. This growth underlines KFH policy in focusing on the growth of its portfolio of credit through financing important projects, whether locally or overseas and, of course, focusing on companies with steady growth to maintain the quality of the credit portfolio.