Islamic banks 'have strong growth prospects'
Recent regulatory changes in Kuwait and Qatar, retail client preferences for Shariah-compliant banking products, and stronger balance sheets and funding positions, provide better growth prospects for Islamic banks compared with conventional peers.
It seems that the brokerage gave Saudi Arabia's Alinma Bank and Qatar Islamic Bank 'overweight'.
The brokerage downgraded Abu Dhabi Commerical Bank to 'neutral' from 'overweight' expressing the fact that slowing private sector activity, rising foreign exchange refinancing costs and a flattening US yield curve will blow net interest margins in the long term.
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