Kuwait Finance House – Bahrain, a pioneering Islamic bank and a major contributor to the development of the Islamic financial sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain, launched a specialized Credit Risk Management training program for Bank employees, in partnership Moody's Analytics. The program aims to promote an integrated and consistent credit risk expertise and credit culture across the bank, and to further enhance the robustness and effectiveness of the Bank’s credit risk management framework.

The specially designed training program that has been formulated to strategically cater for the bank’s needs, comprises of three progressive modules each addressing specific aspects governing credit risk management, and will be delivered over a set timeframe. Twenty employees from the various departments of the bank including credit review, credit administration, risk management, corporate banking, wealth management, financing restructuring and collections departments participated in the first training group of module one.

The first module of the program focuses on the concepts of corporate risk analysis framework and financial statements analysis, while the second module will elaborate on the methodologies of management of corporate credit risk and deal structuring in a consistent approach; and the third module will provide focus on managing problem loans and remedial management.

Commenting on the launch of the program, Sara Zainalabedin – Head of Human Resources at KFH-Bahrain commented: "The program aims to further streamline the Bank’s financing cycle, and to promote a comprehensive, consistent and integrated credit risk culture across the bank. The program also provides the employees with an opportunity to acquire additional expertise in addressing credit risks, and to enhance their capabilities to take innovative decisions and develop financial solutions on robust credit basis".

Mr. Abdulkarim Al Zakari – Head of Credit Review at the Bank commented: "Our partnership with Moody's for this program underlines our keen interest to enhance our use of international best practices for credit risk management standards. It is our aim to establish an international credit risk language at the Bank that leads to improved communication amongst decision makers. The goal is also to enable more robust discussions amongst the client relations managers and the credit risk management team towards achieving the Bank’s objectives and meeting our clients’ needs in the most flexible manner. "