• Only bank to achieve top three performance across Talent, Innovation and Leadership pillars, reinforcing its position as the region's most AI-advanced bank

Dubai, UAE: Emirates NBD, a leading banking group in the Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye (MENAT) region, has been ranked first in the inaugural Evident AI Index for Banks – Middle East and Africa (MEA), underscoring the bank’s position as one of the region’s most advanced financial institutions in artificial intelligence maturity.

The Evident AI Index is the first independent, data-driven benchmark of AI maturity in the banking sector, evaluating the region’s largest financial institutions across four key pillars: Talent, Innovation, Leadership and Transparency. Emirates NBD’s top ranking in this inaugural index reflects its exceptional performance across these benchmarks, demonstrating the strength of its AI strategy, not as a standalone technology agenda, but as a core business capability integrated across its organisation.

This recognition underscores Emirates NBD’s commitment to driving the future of digital banking. AI-enabled transformation is a defined strategic priority for Emirates NBD, embedded across the Group's business strategy, customer agenda and people programmes, and closely aligned with the UAE’s broader AI and digital transformation agenda.

Shayne Nelson, Group Chief Executive Officer at Emirates NBD, said: “This recognition is a testament to our aspiration to lead the region in innovative, customer-centric banking. Our approach is to embed AI deep within our culture, ensuring our technology directly empowers our workforce and simplifies the banking experience for our customers. As we advance our AI-enabled transformation, we will continue to invest in our talent, innovation and the future of banking, further strengthening our position as the leading banking group across the region.”

Alexandra Mousavizadeh, co-founder and CEO of Evident, said: "Emirates NBD's top performance in the Evident AI Index reflects its balanced approach to AI transformation, with strong performance across our measurement of Talent, Innovation and Leadership. It displays the hallmarks of a bank that has laid the foundations for AI transformation, reflected in the highest AI talent volume of Middle Eastern banks, particularly in software implementation and product management talent. These early investments are beginning to translate into meaningful deployment and scaling of AI use cases across the enterprise, documenting strong reported outcomes attached to those deployments, particularly in HR optimisation."

The ranking positions Emirates NBD ahead of 24 of the region's largest banks across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco, Israel, Egypt and Jordan. The full Evident AI Index report is available at https://evidentinsights.com/banking-ai-index-mea

About Emirates NBD

Emirates NBD (DFM: Emirates NBD) is a leading banking group in the MENAT (Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye) region with a presence in 13 countries, serving over 10 million active customers. As of 31st March 2026, total assets were AED 1.2 trillion, (equivalent to approx. USD 327 billion). The Group has operations in the UAE, Egypt, India, Türkiye, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Russia and Bahrain and representative offices in China and Indonesia with a total of 790 branches and 4,536 ATMs / SDMs. Emirates NBD is the leading financial services brand in the UAE with a Brand value of USD 4.54 billion.  

Emirates NBD Group serves its customers (individuals, businesses, governments, and institutions) and helps them realise their financial objectives through a range of banking products and services including retail banking, corporate and institutional banking, Islamic banking, investment banking, private banking, asset management, global markets and treasury, and brokerage operations. The Group is a key participant in the global digital banking industry with 97% of all financial transactions and requests conducted outside of its branches. The Group also operates Liv, the lifestyle digital bank by Emirates NBD, with close to half a million users, it continues to be the fastest-growing bank in the region.

Emirates NBD demonstrates leadership in sustainability by becoming the first bank globally to publish an IFRS S1 and S2-aligned report along with assurance of financed emissions and through the landmark issuance of the world’s first Sustainability-Linked Financing Sukuk by Emirates Islamic of USD 500 million fully aligned with ICMA guidelines. Emirates NBD continues to engage and support communities through its pioneering exchanger volunteer programme which completed 10 years in 2025 with over 160,000 hours contributed to social causes for over 1.1 million beneficiaries.    

For further information on Emirates NBD, please contact:
Ibrahim Sowaidan
Senior Vice President
Head - Group Corporate Affairs
Emirates NBD
e-mail: ibrahims@emiratesnbd.com

Burson
Dubai, UAE
Email: emiratesnbd@bursonglobal.com