The Retail Banking and Wealth Management (RBWM) division of Emirates NBD has posted an operating income of AED4.26bn for the nine months period ended 30 September 2015, a rise of 1.45% from AED4.2bn in the year ago period.

This rise was primarily supported by a 14% increase in fee income driven by strong growth in foreign exchange and credit cards business. This helped improve the fee income ratio to 38% from 34% in 2014, the bank said in its press statement.

The RBWM division’s CASA balances grew by 5% in the first nine months of 2015.

The bank said that the Retail Assets business continued to see margin pressure, though the growth in new volumes of Personal Loans and Auto Loans during the quarter has been healthy, supported by a number of successful campaigns.

The unit’s total advances have grown 10% since the beginning of the year to AED33.4bn. The credit cards business achieved double digit growth whilst debit cards usage was maintained at the highest level of the market.

The division has reported more than 30% rise in mobile banking and online transactions this year whilst branch transactions have declined by 15%.

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Overall, Emirates NBD group posted net profit AED5bn for the first nine months of 2015, up 27% compared to AED3.9bn in the year ago period due to rise in net interest income, a modest increase in costs and a lower impairment charge.

Emirates NBD vice chairman Hesham Abdulla Al Qassim said: "In the first nine months of 2015 Emirates NBD achieved a 27% growth in net profit to AED 5.0 billion. We delivered another milestone with the integration of the Egypt business onto Emirates NBD’s systems platform."

Emirates NBD Group CFO Surya Subramanian said: "We took advantage of favourable market conditions to prudently raise AED 9.5 billion of term-funding in the first nine months of 2015. This decision to ‘front load’ our term-funding requirements in the early part of 2015 is paying dividend even as we can comfortably meet maturing liabilities and wait for more favourable conditions to re-enter the capital markets."