For the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the outlook is stability, resilience and, in time, growth.
Despite the pandemic and its deep economic impact, the $2 trillion core GCC banking sector will weather 2020-2021 intact and be poised to benefit significantly from acceleration in the economic diversification programmes implemented by the region’s governments. These programmes are authentic, and the coronavirus pandemic has given every country in the region very strong reasons to implement them more quickly than before. Within five years – almost certainly sooner – the GCC1 will have fewer, bigger, better banks and these banks will be more international, more digital and more customer focused.