Dubai Islamic Bank board approves plan to acquire Noor Bank

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB)’s board has approved its acquisition of lender Noor Bank to create one of the largest Islamic banks in the world with combined assets of nearly Dhs275bn. Following the completion of the deal, Noor Bank’s operations will be integrated and consolidated within DIB. The new size and scale will allow DIB to expedite its strategy to expand across the far east, sub-continent, and east Africa with Dubai as the hub. The UAE is seeing a wave of consolidations in the market as banks seek to increase capital due to slowing economic growth. Three of Abu Dhabi’s banks are currently in the midst of a merger. That follows the combination of National Bank of Abu Dhabi and First Gulf Bank in 2017 to create a lender with $175bn of assets.