Best bank: Bank Muscat
Bank Muscat has the strongest product offering in Oman for its retail and corporate clients. In 2025, the bank innovated with the rollout of direct debits for SMEs, as well as enhancements to working capital, trade and cards.
Use of digital platforms for payments, collections and trade reduced processing times by 15% in 2025, with onboarding turnaround times for SMEs down 20%. On the retail side, the bank has launched Apple and Samsung Pay in the market, alongside instant digital consumer loans and enhancements to mobile and online banking. Digital registrations exceed 2.4 million, well over half of the bank’s client base.
The bank also has a comprehensive private banking platform, with a full product suite across equities, fixed income, mutual funds, alternatives and offshore banking. In 2025, Bank Muscat launched its alternatives offering, including a Life Settlement Fund and a Private Credit Fund backed by a large global manager.
Clients are served by a highly trained team, which benefits from role-based academies and certifications in credit, risk and customer experience. Staff are trained in digital and data literacy, as well as leadership skills and relationship-manager capabilities.
This expertise has resulted in improved productivity, faster turnaround times, higher customer satisfaction and stronger talent retention. The bank has also set new benchmarks for gender diversity in the market, with around 46% of its workforce comprised of women.
Best investment bank: Bank Muscat
Bank Muscat’s investment banking franchise stands out for its ability to deliver across the full spectrum of advisory and financing, combining domestic leadership with consistent participation in international capital markets.
Its platform integrates project finance, debt and equity structuring, and strategic advisory, allowing it to execute across the transactions that define Oman’s corporate and infrastructure landscape.
In 2025, the bank advised on and arranged approximately $2.2 billion of transactions across six mandates, spanning international bond and sukuk issuances, domestic sovereign funding and financial advisory assignments. Its role on key transactions highlights execution capability and market influence.
These included acting as joint lead manager on a $750 million international bond for Bank Muscat itself, achieving the lowest spread over benchmark for an Omani corporate at the time, and on a $750 million debut green sukuk for Oman Electricity Transmission Company, marking the first such issuance by an Omani corporate.
Alongside international issuance, Bank Muscat played a central role in domestic capital formation as issue manager for Ministry of Finance sukuk programmes, delivering oversubscribed transactions with broad institutional and retail participation. Its advisory work also extends into pre-IPO mandates for major infrastructure assets, reinforcing its role in pipeline development.
This combination of structuring innovation, cross-product capability and repeat execution across sovereign, corporate and project finance transactions positions Bank Muscat at the centre of Oman’s investment banking activity.
Best investment bank for DCM: Ahlibank
Ahlibank’s debt capital markets (DCM) franchise in 2025 is distinguished by clear domestic leadership, combining consistent sovereign and corporate execution with product innovation that expands Oman’s funding toolkit. Its platform is anchored in local-currency issuance and tailored structuring, positioning it as the primary intermediary for issuers accessing the domestic investor base.
DCM remains central to the franchise, contributing a significant share of investment banking revenue across the period and supported by a steady pipeline of new mandates and repeat client engagement. This activity translated into execution across multiple transactions within Oman, reinforcing the bank’s role in developing local capital markets rather than relying on offshore issuance.
Ahlibank played a lead role in sovereign sukuk issuances by the Ministry of Finance during the review period, delivering oversubscribed transactions and pricing outcomes that strengthened investor confidence in the domestic market. In the corporate segment, it executed a senior bond for United Finance Company, attracting strong participation and securing follow-on mandates, demonstrating depth of investor demand and issuer trust.
Innovation is a key differentiator. The bank introduced Oman’s first Islamic commercial paper programme, establishing a new short-term funding instrument and broadening the market’s product set.
