The PAN Arab Web Awards Academy honoured NBB with the award for the “Best Retail Bank Website” in Bahrain for the year 2009 in a glittering ceremony held at the Intercontinental Phoenicia Hotel in Beirut, Lebanon. Mr. Abdulla Ali Kanoo, NBB Chairman congratulated the executive team on this award and wished the Bank further success.

The PAN Arab Web Awards Academy aims to promote the banking websites and the creativity in web design and web development in the banking and finance industry. This is also aimed at encouraging communication and increased interaction with the global financial community. The PAN Arab Web Awards Academy had a distinguished panel of judges who took into account a number of key features of the website (creativity, ease of use, content, aesthetics etc.) before reaching their decision. The NBB website scored consistently high on all parameters to emerge as the overall winner in the retail category. The competition consisted of all financial institutions in the region.

NBB CEO & Director, Mr. Abdul Razak Al Qassim said: “This award is a significant validation of our concerted efforts to continuously improve on our technological initiatives. The NBB website has been designed specifically to ensure that our customers’ electronic banking experience is more enjoyable and easy. The launch of the Internet Banking was received extremely well by our customers and this prestigious award does vindicate our constant efforts to upgrade our services.”

“The year has been a challenging one for everyone in the industry and it is pleasing to note that our efforts to improve our customer experience have been appreciated across the region. At NBB, we have always put our customers first and would continue to do so in the future. Being at the forefront with technological advancement has been a key priority for the Bank and would remain so in the years to come.”

For more information about National Bank of Bahrain, please contact the Public Relations Dept., tel: (00973) 17228800 ext. 5405, fax: (00973) 17211307, email: nbb@nbbonline.com