United Arab Bank's partnership with Barcelona Football Club last year is starting to pay dividends, said the lender's chief executive, Paul Trowbridge.
The Sharjah-based bank has experienced an increase in the number of customers signing up in the past six months because of the allure of football and sporting heroes such as the club’s Lionel Messi.
The three-year tie-up struck last September has been a winning strategy, Mr Trowbridge said.
“We’ve taken in quite a number of customers,” said Mr Trowbridge. “It’s actually helped retail, small and medium-sized enterprises and our corporate bankers because sport is a big part of people’s lives here, particularly Barcelona.”
UAB is not the only bank to partner with football clubs. Last September, Emirates NBD partnered with Manchester United for co-branded credit and debit cards. First Gulf Bank joined hands with Manchester City to become the club's official affinity credit card bank partner.
Mashreq, which is not affiliated with any club, has also jumped on to the football bandwagon. The Dubai-listed lender has launched a limited-edition card with the Fifa World Cup trophy design.
While UAB has not kept exact numbers on how many have signed up because of the partnership, “what we can say anecdotally is that we’ve had a strong increase in customer numbers and I would say 20 per cent out of the ordinary customer growth. In the last six to seven months we’ve seen in excess of what we would regard as normal customer growth”, Mr Trowbridge said.
He declined to reveal the cost to the bank of sponsoring Barcelona but said that it was “a very small amount” and that members of the board who know how much was paid were surprised by how little it was.
He said UAB has a special affinity with the club, which was struggling until the early 1990s, and that Barcelona’s turnaround was similar to the growth spurt UAB enjoyed about five years ago.
“They engaged management consultants to ask what they had to do to propel themselves into the next league, and we did the same,” he said. “UAB was the smallest of the 53 banks for most of its life until five years ago, and now we’re probably number 14 or so.”
Under the partnership with the club, UAB intends to send 1,000 customers to watch Barcelona play live in the Camp Nou stadium over the next three years. It has created a dedicated website for the promotion.
Other high-profile sporting sponsorships from UAE companies include Etihad Airways sponsoring Manchester City, while Emirates Airline sponsors Arsenal. Last year Emirates began its sponsorship of Barcelona's biggest rivals, Real Madrid, paying US$39 million a season.
Like many lenders in the UAE, UAB benefited last year from the recovery of the economy as consumer confidence returned and demand for loans to finance homes and cars increased.
The bank posted a 35 per cent increase in net income last year and shares of UAB, in which Commercial Bank of Qatar has a 40 per cent stake, have gained 22 per cent this year after more than doubling last year.
mkassem@thenational.ae
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