Emirates NBD, the leading banking group in the region, was formed on the 19th June 1963, when the late Sheikh Rashid Saeed Al Maktoum signed the Charter of Incorporation of the National Bank of Dubai (NBD) which became the first national bank established in Dubai and the UAE. With the blessings of Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and the ruler of Dubai, the NBD merged with Emirates Bank International (EBI) on the 6th March 2007 to form Emirates NBD, the largest banking group in the region by assets.

On the 16th October 2007, the shares of Emirates NBD were officially listed on the Dubai Financial Market. The merger between EBI and the NBD to create Emirates NBD became a regional consolidation blueprint for the banking and finance sector as it combined the second and fourth-largest banks in the UAE to form a banking champion capable of delivering enhanced value across corporate, retail, private, Islamic and investment banking throughout the region.

In 2013, Emirates NBD celebrated its 50th anniversary, marking the group’s outstanding achievements while highlighting the bank’s solid historical and financial foundations as well as its promising future.

As at the 31st December 2018, total assets were AED500.3 billion (US$136.19 billion). The group has a significant retail banking franchise in the UAE and is a key participant in the global digital banking industry, with over 90% of all financial transactions and requests conducted outside of its branches. The bank was declared the ‘Most Innovative Financial Services Organization of the Year’ at the 2017 BAI Global Innovation Awards. The bank currently has 230 branches and 1,069 ATMs and SDMs [smart deposit machines] in the UAE and overseas and a large social media following, being the only bank in the Middle East ranked among the top 20 in the ‘Power 100 Social Media Rankings’, compiled by The Financial Brand.

The group has operations in the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Singapore, the UK and representative offices in China and Indonesia. On the 8th November 2017, it opened operations in Mumbai, India. The Mumbai branch marks Emirates NBD’s fifth international branch outside of its UAE network.

The group is an active participant and supporter of the UAE’s main development and community initiatives, in close alignment with the UAE government’s strategies, including financial literacy and advocacy for inclusion of people with disabilities under its #TogetherLimitless platform. The Emirates NBD Group is an official premier partner of Expo 2020 Dubai.

Preservation of the UAE culture and heritage is at the heart of the group and in addition to supporting various initiatives that aim to preserve the UAE culture, Emirates NBD launched in 2003 the first pearl museum in the region containing the largest collection of natural pearls in the GCC. The Emirates NBD Pearl Museum is a gift from the late Sultan Al Owais, the founder of the NBD, to the people of the UAE to remind them of their culture and heritage before the discovery of oil.

Currently, more than 9,000 people, representing 70 nationalities, are employed by Emirates NBD, making it one of the largest and most culturally diversified employers in the UAE. As a national banking champion, Emirates NBD is an ambassador of economic and social progress for the entire UAE to the world.