London Branch attend the Arab Bankers Association Annual Gala Dinner in London
The annual gala dinner took place at the Intercontinental Hotel Park Lane, when 280 guests from banks, along with legal and financial services companies, all came together to honour eminent colleagues and listen to distinguished speakers.
Andrew Woods (London Branch Manager) hosted Mr Farid Barakat who previously enjoyed a career spanning 40 years with National Bank of Abu Dhabi in London. Mr Barakat was the sole advisor to the late Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan (former president of the UAE) on the acquisition of an £8bn central London property portfolio over two decades. Discussion focused on the development and growth of BNF’s London operations with a focus on Qatari property investors.
The recipient of the ABA’s award for Distinguished Service to Arab Banking was Ms Randa Sadik, CEO of Arab Bank. Ms Sadik, who was recently listed the 6th most powerful businesswoman in the Middle East by Forbes Magazine, served as deputy CEO at Arab Bank from 2010-2022, having previously spent 24 years at National Bank of Kuwait.
Ms Sadik was introduced by the Lord Gavin Barwell, formerly Downing Street Chief of Staff during the final years of Theresa May’s premiership. Lord Barwell is now a political advisor to PwC.
The evening’s keynote speech was delivered by Samir Assaf, chairman of the board, Middle East North Africa and Turkey, for HSBC Middle East Holdings and a board member of HSBC Bank Middle East.
Mr Assaf spoke eloquently about the challenges of operating in a world characterised by uncertainty and volatility. He highlighted the importance of the Asian economies – which now contribute 60% of global growth – and the value of two-way trade between Asia and the Middle East, worth $800 billion in 2024 and predicted to reach $1.7trillion by 2035.
In a wide-ranging speech he also addressed the need to reassert control over the unregulated use of stablecoins, explaining that ‘finance ultimately runs on trust and trust needs rules.’ He went on to suggest that just as Arab merchants once invented letters of credit to move value without the need to move gold, it was now necessary to apply the same combination of imagination and discipline to reinvent finance.
