Kuwait’s banking industry has risen to new challenges and increased prominence in the past two years as the Gulf’s northernmost emirate was simultaneously tested by its ballooning revenues and by the deflation of the regional stock market bubble. With a handful of commercial and even fewer Islamic banks, the banking sector’s importance is considerably weightier than the number of players might suggest. A clear indicator for the sector’s growing role in the national economic fabric is the position of banking in the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE), where the nine listed Kuwaiti banks account for close to one third of total market capitalization although they make up barely 5% of listed companies. Banks were at the forefront of the upward trend on KSE this year, which outdid other Gulf equity markets in terms of stable improvements and overall performance. Compared with the 12% gain of the KSE’s general index from the
