Press Releases
CBK's 51st Annual Report (2022/2023)
The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) released its 51st edition of the Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 2022/23 including the foremost monetary and banking developments, as well as the CBK’s efforts to maintain the monetary and financial stability. The report contains the auditors’ report on the Bank’s financial statements as of 31 March 2023.
The Governor, Basel A. Al-Haroon, stated that the first part of the Annual Report highlights the monetary, banking, and economic developments during the reporting year. The Governor explained that CBK spared no effort to boost the monetary and financial stability in Kuwait by adopting through its proactive approach, early intervention, and the effective use of monetary policy instruments, regulatory policy, and macroprudential tools, all of which are adopted in a highly professional manner to support the sustainable economic growth, maintain the attractiveness of the national currency as a lucrative and reliable store for local savings, and ensure that the banking and finance sector units continue providing their services in a smooth, swift and secured manner.
The report indicated that in light of the developments in the global and local economic positions and the monetary policy trends in major economies, CBK has raised the discount rate seven times by total 225 basis point to 4.00% at the end of the said year, against 1.75% during the previous fiscal year. These decisions are in line with the CBK’s elaborate balanced and gradual approach to increase the interest rates, thus achieve its monetary policy objectives that aims at consolidating the foundations of monetary and financial stability within the banking and financial sector units. Furthermore, CBK continues its efforts to maintain a stable KWD exchange rate against foreign currencies. FY 2022/23 witnessed improvement in most monetary and banking indicators, including money supply, deposits, and credit facilities extended by local banks to all sectors of the local economy.
The report highlights CBK’s efforts of oversight over the banking and financial units to strengthen their strong financial positions, and create an apt atmosphere for financial stability. The report further enumerated the CBK’s efforts in the area of innovation in the banking sector, encouraging the modern financial technologies, and developing an infrastructure for electronic payments, including cross-border payments, digital transformation, digital banking, and cybersecurity. On another front, the report lists CBK’s efforts in the field of governance and organization that cover the Board of Directors, the financial control, disclosure and transparency, as well as the development of the human capital through the culture of excellence, transfer of knowledge, the development of national competencies and Job nationalization.
On a related note, the report highlights CBK's key initiatives in the field of social responsibility and communication, including awareness campaigns aimed to protect customers' rights and promote financial awareness. To this end, CBK has launched the national campaign "Be Aware" in cooperation with the banking sector units to increase financial awareness against electronic fraud, and "Kafa'a" initiative to qualify and develop national cadres, and provide the banking and financial sector with highly qualified national employees.
The Governor concluded by stating that a copy of the 51st CBK Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 2022/23 would be obtained from the CBK’s website: www.cbk.gov.kw
