Press Releases
CBK Issues the 53rd Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 24/2025
The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) announces the issuance of its 53rd Annual Report for the fiscal year 2024/25. This was stated by the CBK Governor, Basel A. Al-Haroon, in which he noted that the report highlights the CBK’s efforts for maintaining monetary and financial stability, strengthening confidence in the national currency, banking supervision and prudential oversight, consolidating anti-money laundering efforts, and oversight of financial innovation and emerging technologies, developing information systems, cybersecurity and payment systems, enhancing infrastructure, information technology, and digital transformation, along with the External Auditors' Report on CBK’s Financial Statements as of 31 March 2025.
The report emphasized in the first section thereof on CBK’s efficient response to local and global economic changes by pursuing a balanced, flexible, and proactive monetary policy. The report also presented an analysis of the most prominent monetary and banking developments that demonstrate CBK’s efforts to achieve relative stability in the KWD exchange rate against foreign currencies in order to inflationary pressures on the local economy from fluctuations in the prices of imported goods.
The governor explained that the report covered CBK’s journey to ensure the safety of the national banking system by applying a risk-based supervisory approach, activating prudential oversight tools, and ensuring compliance with international standards, with spot lights on CBK’s supervisory and regulatory functions over the regulated entities, and the efforts exerted to ensure efficiency of information technology infrastructure, enable innovation and digital transformation in the banking sector, and develop electronic payment infrastructure in line with international best practices.
The report summarized CBK’s mandates in monitoring the efficiency of payment systems and ensuring their operational stability by enhancing the quality of cash management and supervising interbank clearing and settlement systems. It also included CBK’s initiatives to drive digital transformation and promote financial innovation by developing technical infrastructure, modernizing payment systems, supporting cybersecurity, and enabling an experimental regulatory environment through the Innovation Hub “Wolooj”, thereby enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of the financial sector.
In another section thereof, the report presented CBK’s efforts to consolidate corporate governance rules by highlighting the active role of its Board of Directors, and the integrated system of financial and Shari’a supervision, and effective risk management to which CBK’s operations are subject through the application of internal control systems and precise and strict procedures to avoid risks in its operations, while maintaining transparency in the preparation of financial statements and the periodic publications.
The report featured CBK’s efforts in the area of social responsibility and public outreach through its awareness programs aimed at protecting banks’ customers and society from electronic fraud, enhancing their knowledge of banking rights and obligations, and raising financial literacy in society through podcasts and quarterly publications.
A part of the report is assigned for CBK’s efforts towards job Kuwaitization, development of the national cadres, capacity-building, enhancement of efficiency and skill sets of the national workforce in the fields of banking and finance in cooperation with Kuwait Institute of Banking Studies.
The Governor concluded his statement by noting a full copy of the report can be obtained from CBK’s website (www.cbk.gov.kw).
