Arab National Bank has been named "Bank of the Year in Saudi Arabia" by The Banker, a long established monthly publication belonging to the Financial Times group in London.

At the same time ANB won two awards from Global Finance magazine. The first rated ANB as "Best Bank in Saudi Arabia in 2003" and the other named ANB as "Best Consumer Internet Bank in Saudi Arabia and Best Consumer On-line Credit Bank in the Middle East in 2003", the second year in a row in which ANB wins this award. It will be recalled that ANB also won in May of this year the award of "Best Overall Fund Manager among Saudi banks" having placed first in terms of performance in six out of thirteen fund categories.

Commenting on these awards, ANB's Managing Director, Mr. Nemeh Sabbagh said that the two international magazines based their decisions on the fundamental restructuring which the bank has undertaken and the significant improvement in performance during the past four years. Profits during the past four years have increased at an average rate of 21% per annum.

Mr. Sabbagh said he was pleased that the bank won the award of Best Retail Internet Bank in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East for the second year in a row and commented that the bank focussed on three major points in designing its internet service. One was to keep in mind what our customers needed most from the internet banking service, second was to provide maximum possible security in using the service and third was to make the use of our internet banking service as straightforward and customer friendly as possible.

ANB was the first bank in Saudi Arabia to launch internet banking in February 2000. The bank announced recently that its profits for the first half of 2003 increased by 25% over the same period of last year.