AFS plans for aggressive expansion

Manama - November 18, 2007

Arab Financial Services Company BSC (c) (AFS), the region's leading third party processor plans for aggressive expansion to realise its vision of becoming the most trusted and respected provider of electronic payment and consumer lending outsourcing services.

AFS Chairman Mr. Ghazi M. Abdul Jawad commented “In the last few years, AFS has grown significantly through a programme of enhancing the company’s core capabilities, improving the products and services and investing in attracting and developing talented people. We believe there are many institutions in the region that will benefit from our experience, superior technology and talented staff. The banking industry is becoming increasingly competitive which is driving financial institutions to become more technically advanced in their approach and the products they offer their customers.”

“At AFS, we pride ourselves on delivering innovative and integrated outsourcing solutions that help our clients succeed and grow their businesses. We will continue to invest heavily in technology and resources in the coming years to ensure that our business proposition adds significant value to our processing clients. Our aim is to create a company which provides an unmatched service at a highly competitive price that will make it very difficult for the global and regional processing vendors to compete with us in the Middle East and North Africa. We envisage a consolidation of processing vendors in the years ahead and AFS plans to remain independent and the first choice for electronic payment and consumer lending outsourcing services in the region.”

“Whilst we have achieved significant growth and stability in the last few years, we plan to become more active and commercially aggressive to ensure that our dominance in the region is maintained. The Board is convinced that we are entering the most exciting time in the companies’ history and we are taking the steps to support the management’s efforts through continued investment and other strategic initiatives,” concluded Mr Ghazi M. Abdul Jawad.