Central Bank of Oman holds meeting on challenges facing banking sector

Muscat: The Annual Bankers’ Meeting was held on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Tahir bin Salim Al Amri, Executive President of the Central Bank of Oman.
The CEOs and higher management officials of banks operating in the Sultanate attended the meeting.
The meeting was organised to highlight CBO’s pivotal role in organising, supervising, regulating and developing the monetary and financial system with a focus on the banking sector.
The Annual Bankers’ meeting also provided a platform to all the stakeholders of the banking sector for a constructive dialogue and a collective discussion on the economic conditions.
Moreover, it helped build and develop a mutually beneficial strong partnership between the CBO and the banking community for achieving common goals, so as to achieve continuous growth and stability.
It also focused on challenges facing the banking sector such as improving the asset quality of banks – particularly restructured and special mention loans, accelerating credit flow to the SMEs, expanding financial inclusion, and leveraging fin-tech for increasing the efficiency of the banking sector.
The discussions also covered main elements of defensive lines in the banks such as Internal Controls, Risk Management Framework, Compliance, Internal Audit and External Audit.