NBO reveals loans to Saad and Al Gosaibi

The National Bank of Oman (NBO), the country’s second-largest lender by assets, Sunday became the latest regional bank to reveal its lending exposure to the Saudi family trading groups at the centre of an international credit default crisis.

The bank’s admission comes after similar disclosures from Bank Muscat in Oman and Mashreqbank in the UAE.

“NBO has a limited inter-bank exposure totalling approximately 6.5 million Omani rials (Dh62.6m) to The International Banking Corporation (Bahrain) and Awal Bank (Bahrain) only,” the bank said in a statement to the Muscat stock exchange yesterday. It stressed that it did not have outstanding loans to other related companies.