In the first quarter of 2026, Emirates NBD added AED44 billion in deposits and AED45 billion in lending. Total income reached AED14.4 billion, up 21% from a year earlier. Buried in the same results announcement was another decision: management had taken an additional AED865 million precautionary impairment charge for the UAE. One part of the bank was financing growth while another was allowing for the possibility that some borrowers’ circumstances would deteriorate. [1]
That combination brought a record expansion alongside a quiet hedge against what comes next which captures the position of the UAE’s financial sector in June. The institutions have entered a more demanding environment with substantial business behind them. Lending is expanding. Investment managers are establishing operations. But the next stage depends on what happens after the deposit arrives, the loan is approved, or the office opens.
The banking system began the year with considerable scale. The Central Bank’s March review put total banking assets at AED5.34 trillion at the end of 2025, up 17.1% over the year, with a capital adequacy ratio of 17.1%. [2] The first-quarter results showed that expansion continuing, though the major banks were converting it into profit at different rates.
ADCB reported operating income growth of 18% and pretax profit growth of 30%, with its cost-to-income ratio improving to 25.6%. Non-interest income rose 36%, a sign of a business growing beyond the spread between what it pays depositors and charges borrowers. [3] First Abu Dhabi Bank told a different story: net lending increased 8% during the quarter against deposit growth of 4%, and operating income rose 6% year over year, but net profit slipped 2% to AED5.01 billion. [4] A larger balance sheet had not, in this case, delivered a larger return. These are consolidated groups with international operations, and their results cannot be read as a clean measure of domestic UAE activity. But they show what the country’s major institutions are doing: expanding while working to earn more from the clients already on their books. A corporate borrower may also need payments, currency hedging, liquidity management, or help raising capital. Winning those assignments makes the relationship more valuable without depending entirely on another loan, but it requires expertise that a larger lending book alone cannot supply.
Outside the banks, the same pressure appears in a different form. DIFC entered the year with more than 500 wealth and asset management companies, an increase of 22% during 2025, and a finance workforce of 50,200, up 9%. [5] Abu Dhabi’s more recent figures show continued momentum: ADGM reported 179 asset and fund managers at the end of March, up 24% from a year earlier, with assets under management up 57%. [6] Those are striking numbers, but establishing a presence only begins a series of operating decisions. An investment business needs people to win mandates, construct portfolios, value holdings, report to investors, and stay within its permissions. Some of that work can be shared with overseas offices. Much of it depends on local knowledge and relationships. The opportunity for the UAE is to capture more of that continuing work with the analysis, the servicing and the risk management rather than serving primarily as the front door through which business enters and is managed elsewhere.
The immediate difficulty is that financial institutions and their customers are moving through different parts of the cycle. The banks’ first-quarter accounts describe business accumulated through March. By May, the conditions facing borrowers had shifted. S&P Global’s UAE survey, published June 3, found continuing non-oil private-sector expansion, but also shipping disruption, declining export orders, and businesses absorbing higher input costs while cutting selling prices. [7] That is a combination worth watching closely. A company can remain busy while the cash left from each sale shrinks. It may need more working capital precisely when its capacity to absorb additional financing costs is weakening. Strong lending growth and precautionary provisions can appear in the same results announcement because the bank is responding to the business available today while preparing for a less comfortable outcome tomorrow.
My expectation for the third quarter is continued expansion, with more variation in how institutions convert it into profit. Existing lending and client relationships should support income. Wealth and asset management should keep creating work around investment mandates and servicing. New commitments will depend more heavily on confidence in trade flows, business cash flows, and regional stability. If disruption eases, financing and investment decisions postponed during the spring could resume. If it persists, credit monitoring, liquidity management, and client support will become more demanding. Neither outcome implies that every institution needs a larger team. Both favor people who can make an existing business more productive or keep it sound.
Hays’ 2026 GCC guide identified corporate and investment banking demand alongside shortages in compliance, treasury, risk, and specialist digital skills. Michael Page’s UAE guide highlighted wealth managers, institutional fundraising and sales, investment operations, and compliance. These are recruiter assessments prepared ahead of the current quarter, not monthly vacancy counts, but the advertisements show what specific employers were actually seeking. [8][9]
There were several openings across the UAE for roles that point toward client development, investment analysis, transaction execution, and controls. Individual advertisements cannot tell us whether an employer is expanding or replacing someone who left, and they do not establish which function has the fastest posting growth. But they share a common thread: they are for work that makes the business already written more valuable, not for people to write more of it.
The UAE has demonstrated that it can attract financial institutions and capital. The first quarter confirmed it. The question now is whether the institutions receiving that capital can do the harder work of converting deposits into returns, mandates into managed assets, and market access into a financial centre whose depth matches its scale.
Sources
[1] Emirates NBD, Q1 results, April 23, 2026. [2] Central Bank of the UAE, Quarterly Economic Review, March 2026. [3] ADCB, Q1 earnings release, April 23, 2026. [4] FAB, Q1 results, April 23, 2026. [5] DIFC, 2025 annual results, February 5, 2026. [6] ADGM, Q1 performance, May 18, 2026. [7] S&P Global, May UAE PMI, June 3, 2026. [8] Hays, GCC Salary Guide 2026, January 2026. [9] Michael Page, UAE Salary Guide 2026, archived copy, available by January 8, 2026.