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	Data Tables

	The Arab Middle East's Strongest Banks

	Strength Scorecard

	Non-financial Data

	Country Summary

In order to help the growing trade between Asia and the Arab Middle East, and to promote better understanding between counterpart banks in both regions, The Asian Banker is introducing a database of the strongest banks in the Arab Middle East as part of The Asian Banker 500+ database. This list defines the relative strength of the banks in the database of the largest banks in the Arab Middle East by assets. Asian Banker Research has developed over several years a Strength Scorecard that rates banks in six areas: scale, balance sheet growth, risk profile, profitability asset, quality and liquidity. Included in the ranking are commercial banks from Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Technical notes:

Risk Index = [E(ROA) + Equity / Assets] / Std. Dev. (ROA). E(ROA) is the expected return on assets, calculated as the average ROA in the past 5 financial years. Std. Dev (ROA) is the standard deviation of ROA which measures the variability of profitability. The Risk Index measures how much a bank's earnings can decline until book value becomes negative. Expressed in units of standard deviation of ROA. The Risk Index gauges banks' ability to absorb accounting losses.

Where banks are marked with a *, 2007 data was used

Highlight Snapshot

Japan's banks are large, but not strong

Although they are not suffering as much as financial institutions in other large economies, Japan’s banks are still the most bloated and least efficiently run financial institutions in Asia Pacific

*Source:Asian Banker Research

OCBC's NPLs dropped in 2008

The four Singapore banks in this year’s Asian Banker 300 (AB300)—DBS, United Overseas Bank (UOB), Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and Citibank Singapore

*Source:Asian Banker Research

South Korea NPLs gathered pace

More than any other country in the Asia Pacific region, South Korea’s banks have been through the wringer. Heavily exposed to short-term financing, the export-dependent country’s banks.

*Source:Asian Banker Research

Banco de Oro moved ahead

With its four AB300 banks racking up a combined $55.1 billion in assets, the Philippines was one of five countries that had four banks or less on the ranking.

*Source:Asian Banker Research