The Middle Eastern private and investment bank blamed market volatility for the year-on-year profit decline in the first three months of 2016.

Dubai-headquartered Emirates Investment Bank logged a first-quarter net profit of AED4.9 million ($1.3 million), down 77 per cent from the same period of last year.

The fall came in spite of a 10.3 per cent rise in fiduciary assets under management since the end of 2015 to AED6.66 billion. Balance sheet assets stood at AED3.54 billion at the end of March, down from AED3.57 billion last year. Operating income, however, was up by 25.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter at AED23.6 million.

“Though global market volatility impacted income generated by our investment portfolio, assets under management continue to grow, reaffirming the robustness of our strategic market positioning,” said Khaled Sifri, chief executive of Emirates Investment Bank.

“The last few quarters represented a period of stabilisation for Emirates Investment Bank after rapidly growing our balance sheet and transitioning the business into the private bank that it is today.”