The Central Bank of the UAE has revealed that banks operating in the Emirates have added nearly 500 billion dirhams to their asset base over the past year. This increase has driven the cumulative asset total up by 12% year-on-year, reaching 4.71 trillion dirhams by the end of the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Additionally, there has been a month-on-month growth of 1.9% since February of this year.
According to the monetary and banking developments report issued by the Central Bank, the cumulative balance of credit extended by the nation’s banks exceeded 2.24 trillion dirhams by the end of March. This reflects an increase of over 195 billion dirhams in the past year, marking a 9.7% annual growth rate, while the month-on-month increase was 1.6% compared to February 2025. The growth was driven by local credit growth of 19.5 billion dirhams and foreign credit, which rose by approximately 16.2 billion dirhams during March.
Moreover, the banks attracted more than 494 billion dirhams in new customer deposits over the past year, as of the end of March, compared to March of the previous year. This has resulted in a 20.2% annual increase in the cumulative total of bank deposits, reaching 2.93 trillion dirhams by the end of March 2025. Month-on-month, deposits rose by 2.3%, supported by a 2.4% growth in resident deposits and a 0.4% increase in non-resident deposits.
The report also noted a month-on-month growth in the monetary base of 2%, exceeding 833.1 billion dirhams in March 2025. This was accompanied by a record rise of 62% in reserve accounts, as well as a 4.1% increase in issued currencies, which offset declines in current accounts of banks and other financial institutions, as well as in monetary bills and Islamic certificates of deposit.
On another note, data from the Central Bank shows that the foreign asset base owned by the bank increased by 203.6 billion dirhams over the year. The cumulative value of its foreign assets rose from 731.6 billion dirhams in March 2024 to approximately 935.2 billion dirhams in March of this year.
The majority of these assets are held in bank balances and deposits with foreign banks, amounting to about 50% of the total assets, which is valued at 466.4 billion dirhams.
Additionally, the Central Bank’s investments in foreign securities grew by nearly 130% over the year, reaching 426.3 billion dirhams, accounting for 45.6% of the total assets by the end of March 2025. The remaining 4.4% of total assets amounted to 42.5 billion dirhams in diversified foreign assets by the close of the first quarter of this year.