Al Rajhi Bank has been one of the main beneficiaries of Saudi Arabia's efforts to promote home ownership via housing finance, and the bank will keep expanding over the next few years. We believe that this growth will be balanced and will support Al Rajhi Bank's earning generation capacity, which is already superior to most rated banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. We therefore revised our outlook on Al Rajhi Bank to positive from stable, and we affirmed the ratings at 'BBB+/A-2'. The positive outlook reflects our view that, over the next 18-24 months, Al Rajhi Bank will outperform its peers and retain its stronger-than-average earnings capacity while maintaining strong capitalization and robust asset quality. On June 15, 2021,
