Emirates NBD’s retail franchise reached a new level of scale and sophistication in 2025, combining strong balance sheet growth, record profitability and a lead in customer experience.
Its retail banking and wealth management division has become a core driver of group performance, delivering its strongest year ever across lending, deposits and investing.
The bank attained the top position in Euromoney’s ranking of the Middle East’s fastest-growing banks, based on retail relationship acquisition, as well as retail deposits and loans. Across its markets, Emirates NBD saw a 2.8 million net increase in customers in 2025 – 200,000 more than next-ranked Alrajhi bank. There was also a clear gap to the third-placed bank, Qatar National Bank, in its absolute growth of retail loans and of deposits, up by an equivalent of $11.7 and $20.1 billion, respectively.
Retail income rose to an equivalent of $6.7 billion during the year, up 18% year-on-year.
What is also clear is the extent to which the growth of the division has been consistent, expanding revenue at more than 25% annually over the past five years.
Emirates NBD delivered market-leading, quality-led growth by deepening relationships and elevating customer experience through digital and data-led execution
Marwan Hadi
The bank is today one of the most scaled retail deposit franchises in the Middle East and has an important position in regional credit cards – an important avenue for customer acquisition, alongside payroll accounts. It recorded a share of more than a third of credit card spending in the UAE last year, at a time of rapid growth. It has added to that performance with new partnerships including co-branded cards with Majid Al Futtaim (ENBD Share) and Amazon (under Emirates Islamic).
One of the clearest differentiators is customer experience, where it showed improvements ranging from call centre performance to lower complaints, and better channel-specific satisfaction scores. More than 40 generative AI use cases are being deployed across the retail division, from hyperpersonalised marketing to internal productivity tools, driving customer experience and efficiency gains.
Meanwhile, the ENBD X platform has become a central acquisition engine, with over 220 services and 1.6 million customers by year end – while the bank maintains a strong physical presence, with 200 branches and 1,500 ATMs in its home market alone.
Diversifying income streams
A further point of distinction is the breadth of the franchise. Wealth management is now a major growth engine, with income up 35% and assets under management rising 44% in 2025. Digital wealth management income is also important in this regard, including the launch last year of crypto trading and other products on a reinvigorated Liv X app.
Marwan Hadi, group head of retail banking and wealth management, sets out its achievements over the year: “Emirates NBD delivered market-leading, quality-led growth by deepening relationships and elevating customer experience through digital and data-led execution,” he says.
“We strengthened engagement, enhanced relationship depth and improved customer value through a more affluent and integrated base. Customer experience stepped up through seamless, omnichannel journeys and consistent service excellence. Digital became the core growth engine, powered by analytics and AI to drive personalization and cross sell.”
Aside from expansion in Abu Dhabi, international income was another growth driver, notably in Saudi Arabia, which saw the launch of ENBD X KSA last year, following a successful branch roll-out programme.
This diversification of income streams – including growing fee income, partly thanks to the rollout of the wealth proposition – further developed in 2026 with the purchase of a controlling stake in India’s RBL Bank. The deal has further cemented Emirates NBD’s status one of the world’s most exciting growth stories in retail banking.
