Warba Wins 'Best in Trade Finance' Award

Waha Bank has achieved a new banking milestone by receiving international recognition at the 2026 MENA Banking Excellence Awards, winning the Best for Trade Finance award. This honor acknowledges the bank’s excellence in trade finance and its provision of specialized banking solutions, reflecting its operational efficiency and continuous development in enhancing its banking services to meet customer needs.

This recognition marks a new milestone in Waha Bank’s track record of achievements and underscores the success of its efforts to develop its banking service framework and strengthen its operational capabilities, alongside its commitment to providing advanced financial solutions that support the business sector and enable companies and institutions to manage their commercial operations efficiently and flexibly.

Winning the Best for Trade Finance award reflects the status the bank continues to consolidate within the banking sector, particularly in offering specialized solutions that support commercial activities and meet the needs of companies and institutions.

This accolade also crowns the bank’s efforts to develop its trade finance services, enhance the quality of banking operations, and provide integrated solutions that facilitate commercial transactions and support customer needs, thereby boosting business efficiency and helping clients achieve their goals and expand their activities.

On this occasion, Liya Mustafa Al-Fahad, Head of Operations Group at Waha Bank, stated: “We are proud that the bank has received this international recognition at the 2026 MENA Banking Excellence Awards and won the Best for Trade Finance award, which represents an acknowledgment of the continuous efforts made to develop its banking services and enhance the efficiency of its operational processes, ensuring the delivery of a distinguished banking experience that meets our customers’ aspirations.”

Al-Fahad added: “Excellence in trade finance services requires integration across the bank’s various sectors, high operational efficiency, and a commitment to developing procedures and providing banking solutions characterized by speed, flexibility, and reliability. From this perspective, we continue to work on enhancing the efficiency of our operational framework and developing our capabilities to align with customer expectations and market requirements.”

She emphasized that this achievement is the result of teamwork and collaboration among different departments, praising the trust and loyalty of Waha Bank’s customers, as well as the dedicated efforts of the bank’s employees in delivering the best banking services according to the highest standards of quality, efficiency, and professionalism.

Waha Bank places great importance on developing its operational framework, considering it one of the fundamental pillars in providing integrated, high-quality banking services. The bank continues to work on improving procedures and developing service delivery mechanisms, contributing to enhanced performance efficiency, faster transaction processing, and a smoother banking experience for customers.

In the field of trade finance, the integration of banking expertise and operational capabilities is crucial in providing effective solutions that meet the needs of companies and institutions and support various stages of their commercial transactions. The bank is keen to strengthen this integration through continuous development and upgrading of its services. This international recognition is a continuation of Waha Bank’s journey of achieving milestones and strengthening its presence in the banking sector. The bank continues to implement its vision based on innovation, continuous development, and enhancing the customer experience, alongside investing in human capital and developing operational and technical infrastructure.

Through this achievement, the bank reaffirms its commitment to continue providing the best solutions and banking services, strengthening its relationships with clients and partners, and operating according to an ambitious future vision that places customers’ needs and aspirations at the forefront of its priorities.

Al-Fahad concluded by emphasizing that customer trust and employee efforts will remain the fundamental pillar of every success achieved, and that this recognition serves as a motivation to continue excelling and achieving further accomplishments, in line with the bank’s institutional slogan, “We Own Tomorrow.”

“Warba” received this award in recognition of its success in developing an integrated commercial finance system that combines digital solutions with specialized banking financing. The evaluation was based on a set of qualitative and quantitative indicators reflecting the bank’s performance in this field, the most prominent of which include expanding the scope of digital services provided to corporate clients, enabling the issuance, tracking, and management of letters of credit and guarantee letters through the corporate banking portal, alongside offering specialized financing solutions such as post-import financing, payment deferral options, and discounting.

The evaluation also covered the bank’s ability to structure and execute complex commercial finance transactions, particularly in the commodities, energy, and contracting sectors, while adhering to Islamic Sharia principles and meeting the requirements of cross-border business operations.

Key indicators highlighted in the evaluation file include Warba’s 9.4 percent share of the corporate financing market in Kuwait as of June 2026, with corporate financing accounting for 82 percent of the total financing portfolio of 4.3 billion dinars, alongside a 29 percent growth in fee and commission revenues during the first half of 2026.

The jury commended Warba’s ability to develop its digital channels for commercial finance, execute specialized financing transactions compliant with Islamic Sharia principles, and provide solutions that help alleviate pressure on customers’ working capital, enhancing their ability to manage their business activities efficiently.