18 Sept 2006
Abu Dhabi: The UAE's Al Fardan Group and National Bank of Egypt (NBE) yesterday announced the launch of a new financial services company capitalised at Dh10 million.
The Al Fardan Financial Services Company will be based in Abu Dhabi but branches will be opened across the UAE at a later stage, a senior company official said.
"The company has secured all approvals from the Ministry of Economy and Planning and it will become operational soon," said Ayman Said Ayyad, General Manager of the company.
"The new company will offer financial and investment services but it will focus on share trading in the markets of UAE and Egypt."
The 50-year-old Al Fardan Group has businesses that range from jewellery manufacturing and trading, money remittance, real estate, general trading and others.
"Setting up a financial services company was a natural step given the growth of the UAE economy and the financial services sector, particularly brokerage services," said Fardan Hassan Al Fardan, Chairman of the Al Fardan Group.
"We will also provide financial consultancy through our qualified staff."
The company has obtained licences to open branches in the stock markets of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Hussain Abdul Aziz Hussain, NBE Chairman, said the bank would provide technical and administrative support to the new company.
"There are currently very few Egyptian companies listed in the UAE but over a period of time there would be more firms that would be cross-listed," said Hussain.
"The UAE also has a huge Egyptian population who trade in shares in both markets and would be looking for our consultancy services," he said.
Set up in 1898, NBE is one of the oldest commercial banks in Egypt and was ranked among the world's top 1,000 banks by The Banker magazine. It was ranked fifth among Arab banks in terms of assets.
By Stanley Carvalho
Gulf News 2006. All rights reserved.
