ALEXBANK, a member of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, has been named “Best Bank in Egypt

ALEXBANK, a member of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, has been named “Best Bank in Egypt” by pre-eminent international finance magazine Euromoney. The awards were presented last night (8/6/2011) at the 2011 Euromoney Middle East Awards for Excellence Dinner in Dubai. In recognizing ALEXBANK for the award of “Best Bank in Egypt” Euromoney Editor Clive Horwood highlighted how "one bank stood out in terms of improvements to its management, product range and service to customers. Together with a focus on retail, a crucial sector in Egypt, the bank's net profit increased twice that of its nearest competitors.”

Driving this substantial improvement to the bottom line, were the Bank’s healthy revenue streams stemming from Corporate Banking facilities and commissions, Treasury and dealing room functions , and incremental growth in Retail Consumer Loans.

“This award marks the culmination of many years of development and dedication by the staff and management of ALEXBANK,” stated Bruno Gamba, Chairman of ALEXBANK “We’ve taken great strides since the privatization in 2006 with regards to upgrading our product offering, branch network and infrastructure in addition to better focus on the needs of our customers. The resources of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group and our talented management team have merged seamlessly and I believe our financial results and growth in key segments reflects that.”

Khaled El Salawy, Head of Corporate Banking stated that “We are at the heart of enabling the continued economic well-being of Egypt. The rate of growth of our portfolio and our commitment to key industries and infrastructure are a reflection of this. There is a substantial opportunity to continue to benefit from the exceptional improvements made in past years”

Also commenting on this important milestone, Karim Namek, Head of Financial and Capital Markets noted that “As a highly liquid organization we have both the financial means to continue to diversify our expansion and penetrate new and lucrative markets, as there continues to be increased demand for increasingly sophisticated financial products and services in the local market. "

Bassel Rahmy, Head of the Retail Banking Group, also noted that “Large investments have been placed to ensure that our branches, products and staff are a benchmark for banking services in Egypt. We’re proud to be one of Egypt’s fastest growing banks and we are underway on a 3 year plan to further increase our efficiency and profitability.”

Regarded as the benchmark awards for financial services globally, the Euromoney Awards for Excellence are now in their 21st consecutive year. This year’s awards process, which began in April, attracted over 700 submissions from the world’s banks and brokerage houses. Euromoney’s dedicated research team and awards panel then rated all the submissions on both quantitative and qualitative factors such as KPIs, financial ratios and innovation over the 12 month period to decide the award winners.

Notes to Editors: Euromoney Magazine is the flagship title of London based financial communications company Euromoney Instituional Investor PLC. Founded in 1969 by Sir Patrick Sergeant, Euromoney Magazine is the voice of the international capital markets and for over 41 years has offered unparalleled coverage of the global bond, equity and foreign exchange markets Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC is a constituent of the FTSE-250 index and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

About Intesa Sanpaolo 
Intesa Sanpaolo is among the top banking groups in the Eurozone and the leading player in Italy in the retail, corporate and wealth management business areas. Thanks to a well-spread network of 5,700 branches it offers a wide range of services to about 11 million customers in Italy. Intesa Sanpaolo’s international activities are focused in Central-Eastern Europe and in the MENA region, where it operates in 13 countries through retail and commercial banks with over 1,700 branches and 8.3 million customers. Moreover, an international network is present in 29 countries to support corporate customers.

About ALEXBANK 
ALEXBANK is one of Egypt’s leading private sector banks. Established in 1957, the bank was privatized in 2006 via the sale of 80% (today holding 70.25%) of its shares to the Italian group Sanpaolo. The sale of the bank to the Intesa Sanpaolo group marked an unprecedented success in Egypt’s privatization landscape. ALEXBANK has since launched an ambitious development strategy to move in line with Intesa Sanpaolo’s innovative systems and platforms and has recently set the standard for branch design, IT infrastructure, service and an ever-growing portfolio of products and services. 
The bank currently operates an ever growing network of over 200 Branches, Forex and Cash Management offices, constituting one of the largest footprints in the Egyptian market, providing a full range of Retail, Corporate, Treasury , SME and MicroFinance banking solutions.