The governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Ahmed Al-Khulaifi, stated that he does not expect other mergers between banks at the present time, other than those already announced. Al-Khulaifi’s comments follow the announcement of the National Commercial Bank, the largest Saudi bank in terms of assets, and Riyad Bank in December, the start of preliminary talks that may result in the establishment of a merging entity that will reach the value of Its assets reached $ 183 billion, and the move came two months after the Saudi British Bank (SABB) and its smaller rival, the first bank, agreed to merge, to form the third largest bank in the Kingdom, in the first major merger in the Saudi banking sector during the recent period. Al-Khulaifi explained that he does not expect a contraction in Saudi Arabia thanks to the demand for individual loans and real estate loans, adding that there is great liquidity, and expressed optimism with the mortgage lending data. The data released last week showed that the consumer price index in Saudi Arabia fell 1.8% in January, compared to a year ago, with low prices for housing, water and energy, and this is the first Fall in prices in the largest economy in the Middle East since 2017, after seeing a continuous rise over the past year after the application of value-added tax. It is worth noting that the Kingdom witnessed the first cases of merger in 1996, at Cairo Saudi Banks, the United Saudi Bank, and after three years, Saudi banks registered their second merger when forming a bank. SAMBAMEN United Saudi Bank, The Saudi American Bank, in 1999.
