icnlive

Menu

ICN.live

Yousef Haddad

Make us preferred on Google

  • 3 min read
  • GCC banks posted record revenue as lending kept rising across households, businesses, and public entities.
  • Net interest income supported growth while higher impairments and expenses pushed quarterly profits lower.
  • Customer deposits slipped for the first time in nineteen quarters, raising funding pressure across lenders.
  • Broad credit facilities growth reflected strong non-oil growth and an active regional project pipeline.

The quarterly rise reached 1.7 percent, showing banks still expanded income despite softer fee generation. Net interest income did most of the work as lending volumes increased across major Gulf markets. Non-interest income slipped after seven rising quarters, trimming part of the gain from core banking activity. At the same time, impairments climbed to their highest level in eighteen quarters regionwide. That shift pushed aggregate net profit down to 15.6 billion dollars from Q3 2025 levels. Broad lending trends gave the quarter its main support, and credit facilities growth stayed widespread.

Listed GCC banks lifted gross loans by 2.7 percent, ending the quarter at 2.47 trillion dollars. Net loans also moved higher, rising 2.5 percent to 2.37 trillion dollars across the region. From my perspective, this pattern shows banks still found healthy demand outside oil-linked segments. Recent project awards and service activity supported borrowing needs in corporate and retail channels. Kamco also linked the trend to resilient non-oil growth across several major economies recently.

Personal and consumer lending remained the strongest driver in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman. Government borrowing also increased in the UAE, Oman, and Bahrain, backing public investment plans.

GCC banking sector revenues and lending strength

Customer deposits then fell 0.6 percent, reaching 2.78 trillion dollars after nineteen straight quarters of gains. This drop, paired with stronger lending, lifted the loan-to-deposit ratio to 85.4 percent. That level stood above the prior quarter reading of 82.8 percent, showing tighter liquidity. Banks still held large funding bases, yet the shift deserves close attention during 2026. Topline growth varied across markets, with Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi lenders posting revenue increases. UAE and Qatari-listed banks reported slight revenue declines, which softened the regional result.

Even so, the record headline confirmed strong earning power from core balance sheet expansion. GCC banking sector revenues also reflected stronger activity in households, government projects, and energy-related segments. Net interest income stayed central because lower yields on credit did not stop loan book growth. Non-interest income moved the other way, reflecting softer fees, trading flows, or related income lines. Energy and utilities lending also showed firm growth, especially in Kuwait and the UAE.
Those patterns matched wider regional spending on infrastructure, power systems, and transition-related projects.

Why profits slipped despite record revenue

Profit pressure came from higher impairments and a second straight rise in operating expenses. Those costs more than offset revenue growth, pulling quarterly earnings back from record levels. Oman stood out as the only market avoiding a quarterly profit decline during Q4 2025. Elsewhere, banks faced broader credit costs as some portfolios required heavier provisioning during the quarter. Construction and manufacturing also weakened in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain during the period. That pullback may reflect project completion cycles or a more careful industrial expansion phase.

The sector still entered 2026 with scale, lending momentum, and clear support from investment programs. For readers, the main lesson is simple: revenue strength looked solid, yet risk costs rose. Analysts will watch whether GCC banking sector revenues keep rising if deposit competition increases. GCC banking sector revenues should stay linked to lending demand, deposit trends, and credit quality.

TAGS
  • Banking, GCC, Government, MENA, Revenue

EXPLORE MORE ON:

TechAICapitalPoliticsBankingHealth
China moves against Hormuz's oil price shocks
EVs

China moves against Hormuz’s oil price shocks with electric taxi power

China moves against Hormuz’s oil price shocks by leaning on a growing electric taxi fleet. Across big cities,...
By Yousef Haddad3 min read
Dubai's total diamond trade
diamonds

Dubai’s total diamond trade reached a new all-time high at $41.7 billion

Dubai’s total diamond trade reached a new all-time high during 2025 across every major category. Official figures from...
By Mariam Al-Yazidi4 min read
$49 billion AI fund

$49 billion AI fund by Abu Dhabi’s MGX closes above its $45 billion target

$49 billion AI fund by Abu Dhabi’s MGX closed this week above its original target. The firm set...
By Mariam Al-Yazidi3 min read
Warren Buffett ends donations to the Gates Foundation
  • Donations

Warren Buffett ends donations to the Gates Foundation after nearly two decades of loyal support. The 95-year-old former Berkshire Hathaway CEO gave nothing to the charity this donation cycle. Instead, he moved 12 million Class B Berkshire Hathaway shares, worth nearly $6 billion, to family. Every share went to four Buffett family foundations run by his three grown children. This decision ends a giving partnership worth roughly $48 billion over the past 19 years. You are watching one of the largest shifts in modern American philanthropic giving unfold.

Inside the Warren Buffett Gates Foundation break

Buffett first pledged his fortune to the Gates Foundation back in the year 2006. He called the promise irrevocable while either Bill or Melinda Gates stayed active there. Gifts flowed every summer as Berkshire stock climbed and the charity expanded its reach. Their friendship began in 1991 and later produced the Giving Pledge for wealthy donors. You once saw the two men praised together as models of generous, disciplined wealth. Cracks appeared in 2021 when Gates ended his marriage to philanthropist Melinda French Gates. Buffett resigned as a foundation trustee two months after the couple announced their split. The rift widened as fresh questions rose about the Microsoft founder and old contacts. Watchers ask why Warren Buffett ended donations to the Gates Foundation after such loyalty.

Bill Gates Epstein ties deepen the split

Bill Gates Epstein ties became the biggest strain on this long philanthropic relationship recently. Justice Department files this year detailed how Epstein cultivated many people close to Gates. Gates told a House committee he deeply regretted ever meeting the disgraced financier Epstein. He has denied any role in the financier’s crimes throughout the entire public inquiry. Reporters say the review by law firm WilmerHale should finish its work this summer. The firm looks at Epstein’s decade-long push to reach advisers around the whole foundation. Buffett paused his usual midyear gift while he waits for those findings to arrive.

He told CNBC back in March he had not spoken with Gates for months. Records show Buffett sent the Gates Foundation more than $47 billion in stock overall. Last year Buffett still sent the Gates Foundation about $4.6 billion in Berkshire stock. My analysis indicates the Epstein cloud pushed Buffett toward a cleaner, family-only giving plan.

Why Warren Buffett ends donations to the Gates Foundation now

Warren Buffett ends donations to the Gates Foundation and now backs his own family instead. The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation takes 9 million shares worth about $4.5 billion today. Buffett founded the charity in 1964 and named it for his late wife Susan. The foundation has funded reproductive health work and college scholarships for many years now. His daughter Susie chairs the board and also runs the separate Sherwood Foundation now. Two sons, Howard and Peter, each guide a foundation receiving 1 million shares apiece. Buffett said, “My goal is to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years.”

By the end of 2034, his whole Berkshire stake should reach these four groups. The Gates Foundation thanked Buffett and said it will stay strong for its work through 2045. For everyday readers, the message shows how personal trust now shapes giant charity choices. As Warren Buffett ends donations to the Gates Foundation, you see priorities turn fully homeward.

  • 3 min read
China moves against Hormuz's oil price shocks
  • EVs

China moves against Hormuz’s oil price shocks by leaning on a growing electric taxi fleet. Across big cities, you now see more riders picking cabs over their own petrol cars. People took 3.05 billion trips in May, a 6% rise since the Iran war. Fares keep falling even while pump prices climb steadily across the whole country right now. A wave of new drivers and cheap electric cars pushes those low prices even lower. Many workers chase ride-hailing jobs in a slow economy, so competition among drivers grows. Cheaper fares then pull in more riders who want to skip their rising petrol bills.

Li, a 36-year-old Beijing driver, says fares fell 10% to 15% in six months. He told Reuters at a charging station how tough the competition now feels for drivers. Yang, a 45-year-old car owner, now prefers a taxi when petrol prices run high. She skips parking hunts and fuel costs on trips too far to reach by bike. Social media posts since March show riders swapping their own cars for cheaper cab trips. This small daily choice, repeated millions of times, reshapes national fuel demand quite fast.

China moves against Hormuz’s oil price shocks with a cleaner fleet

About half of China’s 1.3 million taxi fleet already runs on electric power today. In major cities, China’s electric taxis reach nearly the entire working fleet on the road. Didi added 2 million more electric or hybrid cars to its fleet last year. Its non-fossil fleet now totals 8 million cars, with EVs doing 75% of mileage. You can see the clear payoff in the national fuel numbers from May this year. China burned 10% less gasoline and 14% less diesel than the same month last year. Road freight still rose 2%, and holiday travel hit an all-time high in May.

As fuel prices have gone up, people are driving their own petrol cars less, said Daizong Liu. He leads East Asia work at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in China. Overall travel demand keeps rising, so more trips shift to taxis and the subway. Subway ridership also climbs as many commuters trim spending on their own petrol cars. Each cheap electric trip shows how China moves against Hormuz’s oil price shocks in practice.

Strait of Hormuz oil pressure meets a shifting travel habit

This shift helps explain how China’s oil imports fell 41% in June from last year. Beijing managed this steep drop without heavily draining its own large strategic oil reserves. Freed cargoes then eased a tight global market and kept oil prices in check. An oil price shock hits importers hardest when they cannot swap fuel for power. Analysts read the EV ride-hailing China trend as a real national energy defense right now. Greenpeace expects 90% of taxi and rideshare mileage to run on electricity by 2035.

From my standpoint, this dual trend reshapes how markets should price China’s oil demand. J.P. Morgan says the conflict left China less dependent on oil than markets assumed. You should watch this pattern as fuel prices settle back toward pre-war levels again. China moves against Hormuz’s oil price shocks in a way few big importers can match.

  • 3 min read
Stripe to buy PayPal
  • Digital Payments

Stripe to buy PayPal in a $53B offer now sits at the center of global payments. Payment processing firm Stripe and Advent International submitted the bid to PayPal earlier this month. They offered $60.50 per share for PayPal Holdings, a company facing real market pressure. The offer price sits about 28% above PayPal’s closing share value from Tuesday’s trading session. About $50 billion in committed bank financing now backs this bold move on PayPal. You should watch this deal because it reshapes how consumers and merchants handle money.

Why Stripe to buy PayPal in a $53B offer matters to you

PayPal shares jumped nearly 15% in premarket trading right after the news reached investors. Retail traders pushed PYPL stock into the top trending tickers across social platforms overnight. Some investors argued the price undervalues the firm and its strong free cash flow. The bid still faces board review, and no certainty points toward a final agreement. Stripe to buy PayPal in a $53B offer would merge two giants of digital payments. The company built its business on merchant tools, billing systems, and payment software for firms. PayPal brings a trusted consumer brand, Venmo, and a global checkout network to the table.

Together they would build one of the largest digital payments firms in the world. This new scale would strengthen their stance against Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, and Block. Wolf Financial analyst Sam Badawi called the Stripe PayPal acquisition significant for the buyer’s reach. He said, “A PayPal acquisition would be massive for Stripe, giving it a dominant asset.” Many analysts now track the Advent International PayPal talks for signs of a real deal. The PayPal takeover bid follows an early April approach from the two interested buyers. Stripe and Advent have not yet received a formal reply from the PayPal board. Both suitors want to advance talks over the coming weeks, according to the sources.

The bigger test for PayPal and its new leadership

PayPal launched in the late 1990s as an early leader in online money transfers. Rivals like Apple Pay and Google Pay later took large parts of its market share. Its market value peaked near $360 billion in 2021 during the pandemic payment wave. The value then fell as low as roughly $36 billion at one point this year. PayPal has lost over 40% of its market value across the past twelve months. From my standpoint, this bid tests whether sheer size can fix PayPal’s growth problem. CEO Enrique Lores took over in March and began a broad company turnaround plan. He split the firm into checkout, Venmo consumer services, and payments and crypto units. PayPal revenue rose 7% to $8.35 billion during the first quarter of this year. Total payment volume climbed about 8% from a year ago to roughly $464 billion.

What Stripe to buy PayPal in a $53B offer means next

Stripe to buy PayPal in a $53B offer, announced by Reuters, still needs a real path forward. PayPal’s board holds the next move, and regulators would review any final signed agreement. You should track the board response, financing terms, and any rival offers over the coming weeks. Some traders still think the current price sits far below what PayPal truly deserves. The coming weeks will show whether this bold bid grows into a real deal.

  • 3 min read
Load More News

Share this post

on your favourite social platforms

or copy the link