Caution is the watchword among bankers

Bankers expect the overall profitability to be moderate this year while top-line growth is expected to be significantly lower, while factors such as improved recoveries, stronger collateral values and lower provisions could continue to boost their bottom lines. Non-performing loans (NPLs) and provision figures for the first two quarters confirm this argument. For Emirates NBD (ENBD), during the first half, the impaired loan ratio improved to 7.4 per cent from 7.9 per cent at the end of 2014. For Mashreq, NPLs remained stable at Dh2.8 billion in June 2015, leading to NPLs to gross loans ratio of 3.7 per cent at the end of June 2015.