Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain – The Central Bank of Bahrain’s (CBB) Board of Directors held its fifth meeting for the year 2024, chaired by Mr. Hassan Khalifa Al Jalahma on Sunday, 8th December 2024.

The Board reviewed the agenda items, and approved CBB's budget for 2025.

The Board also reviewed key monetary and banking indicators for the year including the money supply, which increased by BD 0.8 million to reach BD 16.5 billion at the end of October 2024, compared to the same period in 2023. As for retail banks, total private deposits increased to BD14.4 billion at the end of October 2024, an increase of 3.4% compared to the end of October 2023. The outstanding balance of total loans and credit facilities extended to resident economic sectors increased to BD12.1 billion at the end of October 2024, an increase of 3.9% compared to the end of 2023, with the Business Sector accounting for 42.4% and the Personal Sector at 49.0% of total loans and credit facilities.  The balance sheet of the banking system (retail banks and wholesale sector banks) increased to $248.0 billion at the end of October 2024, an increase of 8.1% compared to the end October of 2023.

Point of Sales (POS) data for October 2024 totaled 19.4 million transactions (77.4% of which were contactless), an increase of 20.4% compared to the same period in 2023. The total value of POS transactions for October 2024 totaled BD 407.2 million (51.1% of which were contactless), an increase of 13.5% compared to the same period in 2023.

The banking sector maintained a high level of capital adequacy and liquidity, as the capital adequacy ratio of the banking sector reached 20.5% in Q3 2024 compared with 19.4% in Q3 2023. The capital adequacy ratio for the various banking sectors was 32.0% for conventional retail banks, 16.3% for conventional wholesale banks, 23.5% for Islamic retail banks, and 19.8% for Islamic wholesale banks in Q3 2024.

The total number of registered Collective Investment Undertakings (CIUs) as of November 2024 stood at 1737 CIUs, compared to 1659 funds as of November 2023. The net asset value (NAV) of the CIUs increased from US $10.644 billion in Q2 2023 to US $11.178 billion in Q2 2024, reflecting an increase of 5.0%. Moreover, the NAV of Bahrain domiciled CIUs increased from US $4.390 billion in Q2 2023 to US $4.428 billion in Q2 2024, reflecting an increase of 0.9%. Furthermore, the NAV of overseas domiciled CIUs increased from US $6.254 billion in Q2 2023 to US $6.750 billion in Q2 2024, reflecting an increase of 7.9%. Additionally, the NAV of Shari’a-compliant CIUs increased from US $1.409 billion in Q2 2023 to US $1.812 billion in Q2 2024, reflecting an increase of 28.6%.