Bahraini retail and commercial banking institution, BMI Bank (BMI), today announced its preliminary financial results for the half year ended 30 June 2010. The results are subject to a review by the statutory auditors of the Bank, the Central bank of Bahrain as well as the approval of the Board of Directors of the Bank in a meeting scheduled for August 2010.

Commenting on the Bank’s half year performance, Sheikh AbdulMalik bin Abdullah Al Khalili, Chairman of BMI said:

“The underlying business in our Bahrain, Qatar and Seychelles operations as well as our associate in Kenya, Gulf African Bank (21.33% owned by BMI) continues to demonstrate growth during the first half of the year with an increase in customer numbers. BMI recently celebrated its 5-year anniversary with a renewed commitment to invest in better customer service and innovative products, leading to inspiring banking solutions. The Bank has excellent Capital Adequacy at over 20%, and strong liquidity which gives us added security as well as the ability to support our customers.

In line with our commitment towards maintaining higher levels of prudency in our business, we have increased our provisions on certain corporate loans and have conservatively raised a collective provision on our standard loan book in line with guidelines from the Central Bank of Bahrain. As a result of these non-cash charges, our preliminary results reflect a loss after provisions of BD 8.4 million for the second quarter of 2010 and BD 7.5 million for the first half of the year.”

Jamal Al-Hazeem, the Chief Executive Officer of BMI said:

“We have been very prudent and conservative in our provisioning. Based on our current assessment of our loan portfolio, we do not expect to take significant levels of provisioning in the 2nd half of the year. This enables us to focus on continuing the growth and transformation of our business. By constantly improving our product offering as well as focusing on growing the branch and ATM network within Bahrain, we have improved the customer offering and made BMI a stronger choice for our customers. We will shortly be launching an upgraded core banking system that will provide our customers with enhanced customer service levels through the introduction of a state-of-the-art next generation system.”

BMI will release the final results along with a complete set of financial statements for the period ended 30 June 2010 after the necessary review by the statutory auditors, the Central Bank of Bahrain and the approval of the Board of Directors of the Bank in August 2010.