Kuwait Business: High oil drives GCC bank deposits in Q2: Kamco – Gulf Digital News

Kuwait Business: High oil drives GCC bank deposits in Q2: Kamco – Gulf Digital News

Consistently elevated oil prices since the start of the year was reflected in the latest customer deposit numbers during the second quarter of the year (Q2) for listed banks in the GCC, said leading Kuwait-based Kamco Invest in a new report.

The gain in oil prices came as a windfall gain for governments and companies in the upstream sector enabling most governments in the region to report their first fiscal surplus in several years, according to the “GCC Banking Sector Report Q2-2022”.

This provided additional support to the economy enabling the government to spend on new projects and was reflected in the growth in banking credit facilities during the quarter.

Aggregate q-o-q growth in customer deposits was at a four-quarter high of 4.0% to reach $2.2 trillion at the end of Q2-2022 after aggregates for all countries in the GCC reported a growth.

Saudi Arabia and UAE reported the strongest q-o-q and y-o-y growth while Qatari and Omani banks reported relatively smaller increases. Lending activity, on the other hand, remained robust during the quarter further strengthening the loan books at the end of the quarter. Aggregate gross loans reached $1.8 trillion at the end of Q2-2022, up 2.0% q-o-q and 7.4% y-o-y.

Net loans witnessed