The Saudi British Bank

The Saudi British Bank provides banking and financial services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The company operates through Retail Banking, Corporate and Institutional Banking, Treasury, and Others segments. The company's personal banking services include current and savings, and commodity investment accounts; personal and home financing, and financing against cash deposits products; credit, debit, and prepaid cards; wealth management solutions, such as asset management, brokerage, securities, investment banking advisory, debt capital markets, project and export finance, and equity research services, as well as takaful services; payments and transfer services; private banking services; safe deposit lockers; and online, mobile, and phone banking services. Its business banking services comprise deposit accounts, credit facilities, and business credit cards; liquidity and cash management services, including collection and payment management services, and point of sale services; trade and receivables finance services, including export and import services, and guarantees; structured trade solutions; investment banking and advisory services; derivatives trading and repo services; and Islamic financial solutions. The company also acts as an insurance agent; and purchases, sells, and leases land and real estate properties. It operates through a network of 108 branches in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi British Bank was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The British Bank of Iran and the Middle East, which became British Bank of the Middle East , opened branches in Jeddah and Al Khobar in 1950. The Jeddah branch in particular depended for its profits on the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Makkah . Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation acquired BBME in 1959.

In 1976 the central bank enacted its sweeping policy of banking sector Saudization to address foreign banks' domination of the sector and its impact on the Saudi economy. Consequently, it directed all foreign bank branches to incorporate in Saudi Arabia and limited their parent companies to ownership of forty percent of these new entities.

As a result, HSBC incorporated in Saudi Arabia in 1978 and opened up to local ownership, renaming itself the Saudi British Bank. Ownership became 60% Saudi and 40% HSBC, and HSBC has a technical services agreement with the bank.HSBC Holdings of Britain held 49% stake in the joint venture with SABB holding 51% until October 2019 when HSBC Group acquired shares from SABB to become the major shareholder with 51% stake.

On May 16, 2018, SABB and Alawwal Bank entered into a non-binding agreement on a deal for SABB to acquire Alawwal. The agreement concluded nearly one year of negotiations, and SABB will be represented by U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs in the transaction. Alawwal Bank will cease to exist as a legal entity and will be absorbed into SABB, creating Saudi Arabia's third largest bank with a market cap of $17.2 billion.SABB shareholders will own 73 percent of the new bank, which is expected to be chaired by Saudi businesswoman Lubna Al Olayan. Final agreement on a merger deal was announced one week after the Saudi government launched the Financial Sector Development Program, an executive program aimed at overhauling the Saudi financial sector to create an effective capital market capable of supporting the goals of the Vision 2030 economic reform plans.The merger of the two banks was completed on 16 June 2019. The integration of the two banks was planned to completed in about 18 months.The integration was planned to completely took place in about 18 months, which will result in retention of the brand name "Saudi British Bank" only.On 14 March 2021, Alawwal & SABB fully integrated in historic bank merger.

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Leading bank in the region