October 12, Manama (BNA): Hassan Khalifa Al Jalahma presided over the Central Bank of Bahrain’s (CBB) Board of Directors’ fourth meeting of 2025.
CBB holds fourth Board meeting for 2025
The Board went over the items on the agenda, which included CBB’s third-quarter 2025 financial sector developments and operations as well as the company’s financial performance report as of the end of September. Additionally, updates on supervisory initiatives and payment system upgrades were delivered to the Board. One of the significant projects that CBB is working on was the GP15 Graduate Development Program.
The Board also examined important banking and monetary metrics for the month of August, such as the money supply, which at the end of August was BHD 16.3 billion, down BHD 0.1 billion from the same time in 2024. By the end of August, retail banks’ total private deposits had grown to BHD 13.5 billion, a 0.3% rise over the end of August 2024. The business sector accounted for 40.9% and the personal sector for 48.8% of the total loans and credit facilities extended to resident economic sectors, bringing the total outstanding balance to BHD 12.6 billion at the end of August. This represents a 4.0% increase over August 2024. By the end of August, the banking system’s balance sheet (which includes both retail and wholesale sector banks) had grown to $246.8 billion, a 1.5% rise over the end of August 2024.
170.4 million transactions were made between January and August, with 77.6% of those transactions being contactless, according to Point of Sale (POS) data. This represents a 22.2% increase over the same period in 2024. 51.7% of the BHD 3.4 billion in POS transactions from January to August were contactless, representing a 13.6% increase over the same time in 2024.
In Q2 2025, the banking sector’s capital adequacy ratio was 20.3%, up from 20.4% in Q2 2024. In Q2 2025, the capital adequacy ratio for the different banking sectors was 20.0% for Islamic wholesale banks, 23.8% for Islamic retail banks, 16.2% for conventional wholesale banks, and 29.7% for conventional retail banks.
As of June 2025, there were 1733 Collective Investment Undertakings (CIUs) registered overall, up from 1707 CIUs in June 2024. In Q2 2025, the CIUs’ net asset value (NAV) dropped by 2.35%, from US $11.178 billion in Q2 2024 to US $10.915 billion. From US $1.812 billion in Q2 2024 to US $2.060 billion in Q2 2025, the NAV of Shari’a-compliant CIUs grew by 13.69%. The net asset value (NAV) of CIUs based in Bahrain fell by 1.92% from US $4.428 billion in Q2 2024 to US $4.343 billion in Q2 2025. Furthermore, the net asset value (NAV) of CIUs with overseas domiciles fell by 2.64% from US $6.750 billion in Q2 2024 to US $6.572 billion in Q2 2025.
