UBF Agrees Partnership with British Bankers' Association

20 December 2015: The UAE Banks Federation, a professional body representing 49 member banks operating in the UAE, has become an associate member of the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), providing a number of benefits to the Federation and its member banks. This partnership aims to strengthen the relations and co-operation between the two organisations, and to enable the Federation and its members to take advantage of international best practice and expertise in its role of assisting and advocating the development of the banking sector in UAE.

Under the arrangement, committees of the two organisations will co-operate on high priority areas of mutual interest such as compliance, anti-money laundering and financial crime, SME lending and digital banking. The Federation will also have access to reports and research papers compiled by the BBA and its specialised committees. The agreement follows a visit to the BBA in London in October by the General Manager of the UAE Banks Federation, Nasser Sarris, where he held a number of exploratory meetings with BBA officials and attended the BBA’s annual showcase conference.

Also, in November the CEO of the BBA, Anthony Browne, was a guest speaker at the recent annual conference of the UAE Banks Federation, the Middle East Banking Forum, where he raised such topics as digital challengers to the banking industry, how the industry should look in the future and how London can remain a competitive banking and financial centre. During his visit to UAE, Mr Browne also met the Chairman of the Federation H.E AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, with whom he discussed the latest developments in the banking sector of UAE and areas of co-operation in matters of mutual interest to the two organisations.

HE AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, Chairman of the UAE Banks Federation, said: “London remains the pre-eminent global financial centre and our partnership with BBA will strengthen ties between the banking sectors in both countries. This agreement allows us to access the latest thinking and researches that the Association is doing into many issues of the day affecting the international banking industry. We look forward to working with our counterparts in many different ways, including joint meetings and inviting specialists to attend our committees and other events to guide and support our own work.”

Anthony Browne, CEO of the BBA, added: “I am very pleased that we have reached an agreement with the UAE Banks Federation to share expertise and further strengthen the already close links between our two banking sectors. The UAE is an important financial hub and this agreement will help to ensure that we remain up to speed on high priority issues in both markets.”

The BBA is the leading trade association for the UK banking sector with 200 member banks headquartered in over 50 countries with operations in 180 jurisdictions worldwide.  Its network also includes over 80 of the world’s leading financial and professional services organisations and its members manage more than £7 trillion in UK banking assets.

The partnership with the BBA complements co-operation agreements that the Federation already has with the Korea Federation of Banks and the Italian Banking Association, both initiated in 2013.