Industry chief urges central banks to share information

GCC central banks should exchange more information on borrowers to prevent alleged fraud cases such as those involving the two Saudi conglomerates Saad and Al Gosaibi, according to the chairman of the Union of Arab Banks. But Adnan Yousif reassured bankers that their defaults could be contained, and posed no real threat to banking in the Gulf.

“We should have a system within the GCC countries to enable banks to know the debt size of any borrower,” said Mr Yousif, who is also the president and chief executive of Al Baraka Bank, Bahrain’s largest Islamic bank by market value.

“We already have that information of individuals and corporations. We should encourage central banks to start exchanging that information [on borrowers].”