RIYADH: UAE-based banks’ aggregate capital and reserves reached 501.5 billion dirhams ($136 billion) at the end of February, up 14.4 percent year-on-year, according to new data. The latest statistics from the Central Bank of the UAE showed that on a monthly basis, the total capital and reserves grew 0.95 percent, reflecting an increase of approximately 4.7 billion dirhams, according to the Emirates News Agency, also known as WAM. This rise in figures falls in line with the central bank’s goal of enhancing monetary and financial stability in the country. Moreover, the data indicated that national banks accounted for around 86.5 percent of the aggregate capital and reserves of banks operating in the UAE. At the end of February, they recorded a total of 433.7 billion dirhams, an annual rise of 14.6 percent. On the other hand, the share of foreign banks settled at 13.5 percent, hitting 67.8 billion dirhams at the end of the same month, reflecting a 13.2 percent surge compared to the same period a year earlier. Furthermore, at the end of February, the total capital and reserves of banks operating in Dubai alone stood at 246.4 billion dirhams, logging a year-on-year growth of 15.1 percent. Additionally, banks operating in Abu Dhabi recorded around 217 billion dirhams, up 13 percent from the corresponding period in 2023. Meanwhile, the cumulative capital and reserves of banks operating in other emirates combined reached an estimated 38.1 billion, reflecting a 15.5 percent climb in comparison to the same period a year prior. In March, a top executive at Roland Berger said that UAE bank branches were witnessing the highest revenues in the region, amounting to $18.6 million per branch. This was driven by the nation’s digital transformation, which enabled financial institutions in the Gulf Cooperation Council to reduce the number of banking branches by 328 within three years, Saumitra Sehgal, the global consulting firm’s head of financial services in the Middle East, told WAM, at the time. Sehgal also pointed out at the time that the number of bank branches across GCC nations decreased from 4,067 at the end of 2019 to 3,739 by December 2022. He further noted that banks in the UAE saw the highest number of outlets merge and reduce with the support of digital transformation between 2019 and 2022.