Aiming to better customer experience BIB announces agreement with Euronet Middle East

Manama-Bahrain-March 21, 2006

Bahrain Islamic Bank, first Islamic Bank in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Euronet Middle East, a joint Venture between Euronet World Wide and Arab Financial Services (AFS), announced today a multiyear ATM Driving and Debit Cards Management agreement.

The Bahrain Islamic Bank (BIsB) HQ at Diplomat Salam Tower witnessed a signing ceremony between Bahrain Islamic Bank and Euronet Middle East in which Bahrain Islamic Bank will outsource the driving of its existing network of 19 ATMs, the management of its existing Debit cards of 44,000 cards and the issuance of its new debit cards to Euronet Middle East which will manage these operations from its headquarters in Manama.

Euronet Middle East will also provide the bank with all the related driving services as the 24x7 help disk, 24x7 monitoring services, and the 24x7 call center.

"The agreement is illustrative of Bahrain Islamic Bank’s plans to aggressively increase its ATM network in Bahrain to support the increased issuance of Debit cards." Yousif Saleh Khalaf, BIsB CEO said.

"The decision to outsource the Bank’s ATM switch operations to Euronet, by any means, is considered a key decision which will provide the Bank with lower transaction costs, higher security and reduced risks" Mr. Khalaf added.

"It will also enable the Bank to provide a better service to its customers, with new features such as credit card cash withdrawals, and allow an easier migration to new international EMV smart card requirements" he continued.

Euronet Middle East, a Euronet Worldwide and AFS joint venture, is specialized in debit card management and operational services, ATM and POS outsourcing services, Chip card issuing services, and Gateway services to Visa/MasterCard and National switches. It also provides value added services including bill payment and GSM top-up transactions, among others.

"The concept of outsourcing ATMs driving and the management of debit cards to an experienced service providers such as Euronet Middle East has been well accepted by banks in whole Middle East region with the recent contracts that Euronet Middle East signed in Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and now in Bahrain and we are very pleased to be leading this progression in the market.’ commented Mr. Rasool Hujair, Euronet Middle East CEO.

"With the addition of Bahrain Islamic Bank to its client portfolio, Euronet Middle East now provides its ATM Driving services, Debit cards management and issuance Islamic services to one of the leading Islamic Banks operating in the Consumer Banking space in Bahrain, which is a significant achievement for our operation," said Mohamed Mousa, Euronet Middle East General Manager.