FGB has most valuable staff among UAE banks

First Gulf Bank (FGB) has the most valuable employees among UAE banks, with the Abu Dhabi-based bank's average staffer netting a cool Dh1.76m in bank profit for the first half of 2010, an Emirates 24|7 analysis reveals.

According to the study of the UAE's 19 listed commercial banks conducted by this website, each of FGB's 969 employees earned over half a million more in profits than the second ranked Bank of Sharjah (BoS), each of whose 'most valuable assets' earned it Dh1.23m in net profits for H1 2010.

The earnings per head of the average FGB employee, in fact, are more than the combined earnings of the average staffer among the last 10 banks in the study, who together netted just Dh1.46m, or Dh146,064 per head in six months.

Emirates 24|7 research shows that the average UAE bank employee made their company richer by Dh394,317 in the first six months of the year.

The study also shows that when it comes to profitability, size doesn't matter, with Emirates NBD, the largest employer on the list with over 7,000 employees, relegated to No. 12 on per employee profitability, with BoS, which had the least number of employees (222) among the sample, sitting pretty at No. 2.

Others among the top 10 most valuable employees list are the No. 3 ranked National Bank of Abu Dhabi (3,560 employees; Dh570,688 in per employee profits for H1 2010), Union National Bank (1,450; Dh494,226), Commercial Bank of Dubai (1,200; Dh427,439), National Bank of Umm Al Qawain (500; Dh407,216), InvestBank (443; Dh393,273), Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (1,568; Dh379,336), United Arab Bank (385; Dh365,701), and Dubai Islamic Bank (2,000; Dh250,682).

Profitability of banks in the country has been dealt a blow by the ongoing global credit crunch and debt defaults, with UAE banks accounting for more than half of provisions undertaken by all Gulf banks in the second quarter of 2010.

The collective bottomline of UAE banks declined by 30 per cent in the second quarter of 2010 compared with the same quarter a year ago, with provisions for bad loans eating into profitability.

Experts opine that banks might not have taken all the provisions necessary for the bad loans on their books, and that we might see the trend of higher provisions continuing in bank results in second half of this year.

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