First Abu Dhabi Bank Brand Guidelines: The 2017 NBAD–FGB Merger, FAB & FAB Islamic

Two Abu Dhabi lenders, one share swap.

First Abu Dhabi Bank is a merger brand. Gulf News, in its company profile, says FAB was established in 2017 through the merger of National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) and First Gulf Bank (FGB). NBAD, founded in 1968, was one of the country’s earliest and most internationally active banks, the paper says, while FGB, established in 1979, had a strong retail and corporate base.

The deal was public from mid-2016. On 3 July 2016 the boards of First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi approved a proposed merger, aiming to complete it in the first quarter of 2017, Arab News reported, carrying a Reuters story. It was structured as a share swap: FGB shareholders would receive new NBAD shares for each FGB share.

The final steps came in spring 2017. Zawya, reporting on 30 March 2017, said the two banks were finalising the merger and that FGB customers could already use NBAD’s cash machines without the usual charge for another bank’s ATM; the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange had said in February that the merger was expected to be complete on 1 April 2017, with shares in the new entity trading from 2 April. By then the board of the combined NBAD–FGB bank had approved its 2017 budget and reviewed its integration plan. FGB customers kept their existing accounts for the time being, the bank told them.

The combined bank took the name First Abu Dhabi Bank, shortened everywhere to FAB. Gulf News describes the result as a single institution with one of the region’s strongest capital positions, a platform for expansion abroad.

A three-letter name and a stated scale.

Today the bank presents itself mostly through its initials. Its website calls it “FAB” in headings, product names and log-in screens: FAB Business Portal, FAB Securities, FABS Online. The legal form in the footer is First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, a public joint stock company, and the head office is at Khalifa Business Park in Abu Dhabi.

Size is the main theme of its own copy. The bank describes itself as “the UAE’s largest bank” and says its international network “spans five continents.” Gulf News describes it as the country’s largest bank by assets, operating in 19 international markets and listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. Those are the bank’s and the paper’s descriptions rather than rankings set out here.

The business is divided into segments that appear as the main menu on the website: Personal, Business, Corporate, Investment Banking, Islamic and Private. Among the named products is the Ratibi prepaid card, whose balance check sits in the site’s log-in menu. The bank says it aims to meet customers’ needs “via its market-leading Corporate and Investment Banking and Personal Banking franchises.”

Its current campaign line is “Grow Stronger, together.” The bank uses it to describe a social movement it launched with its sponsorships, which it says focuses on “supporting individuals, corporates and communities.” Its customer charter, summarised on the same pages, speaks of helping customers “grow stronger” and of treating their financial needs “with priority, speed” and transparency.

How Gulf banks present themselves.

Gulf banks present themselves in two scripts at once. Emirates NBD and QNB both pair a short English name with a full Arabic one — QNB’s Arabic name, بنك قطر الوطني, reads simply as Qatar National Bank — so an identity has to work in right-to-left Arabic and left-to-right Latin, often on the same card, sign or app screen. The guides in this series look at marks built from geometric forms or from Arabic calligraphy, at palettes of deep blue, green and gold, and at photography that moves between city skylines and heritage scenes.

They also look at how banks organise what they sell. Retail, private and corporate banking usually sit in separate sections of a bank’s website, and the larger groups add brands of their own: Emirates NBD runs Emirates Islamic as its Islamic bank and Liv as its digital bank, and QNB has launched a digital bank called ezbank in Egypt.

Islamic finance shapes much of that design work. Islamic banking avoids interest, so financing is usually arranged as a sale at an agreed mark-up, a lease or a partnership, and products are reviewed by a board of Sharia scholars. Product pages for Islamic accounts and financing therefore have to explain those structures in plain language.

Banks in the region also tie their brands to national plans and to sustainability. QNB links its sustainability work to Qatar National Vision 2030, according to Wikipedia, and Emirates NBD built a 2026 campaign around Emirati Women’s Day. Brand work now reaches beyond the logo too: in December 2025 QNB launched a sonic identity that blends the oud with modern synthesisers, Gulf Times reported. Each guide sets out what can be checked about one bank — its founding, its mergers and its owners — and treats the palette shown as our own interpretation.

A sub-brand built from the parent identity.

The FAB name was extended to the group’s Islamic business in 2018. On 5 November 2018 the bank announced a new FAB Islamic logo “inspired by the FAB Brand Identity,” and said that its wholly owned subsidiary Abu Dhabi National Islamic Finance had changed its legal name to First Abu Dhabi Islamic Finance, according to a WAM report carried by Zawya. The subsidiary had been launched in 2007, its chief executive said at the time, and over that decade it had built, in his words, “a strong branch network, a comprehensive suite of Sharia-compliant financial solutions and an extensive customer base.” Its products and services stayed the same under the new brand, and the company said its commitment to customers was unchanged while it operated under a new name and identity.

Islamic finance, in plain terms, covers banking products structured to avoid interest, using trade, lease and profit-sharing contracts reviewed by scholars of Islamic commercial law. At FAB it sits as one of six customer segments on the website, beside personal, business, corporate, investment and private banking, and it has its own customer charter alongside the main one.

The 2018 move extended the merger’s naming to the Islamic arm: the Abu Dhabi National Islamic Finance name was replaced, and the logo was drawn from the parent identity. On the website today, portals and services such as FAB Business Portal, FAB Securities and FABS Online carry the same prefix, and the bank’s corporate and investment banking, personal banking and private banking all sit under the FAB name.

For a design guide, First Abu Dhabi Bank shows how a merged bank can retire two well-known acronyms and build everything — from an Islamic sub-brand to a securities portal — on a single three-letter name. Compare Emirates NBD, another UAE bank formed by merger, and Al Rajhi Bank, the Riyadh Islamic lender. For this guide we use navy, a deep harbour blue, teal and a dune beige with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep First Abu Dhabi Bank’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.