Riyad Bank Brand Guidelines: A 1957 Royal Decree, Riyad Capital & the Bukra Programme

A joint-stock bank by royal decree.

Riyad Bank was founded in 1957. Arabic Wikipedia says it was set up as a Saudi joint-stock company by royal decree and a Council of Ministers resolution dated 23 November 1957, and the bank gives 1957 as its founding year; so does the profile published by Forbes Middle East in March 2025. Its Arabic name, Bank Al Riyadh, is the name of the capital, where the bank is based.

Like other Saudi commercial banks, it is supervised by the Saudi Central Bank, English Wikipedia notes, and its shares trade on the Saudi stock exchange, Tadawul: the Gulf financial news site Argaam counted it among the Tadawul-listed banks in a 2016 ranking. Arabic Wikipedia describes its work as banking and investment business for its own account and for others, inside and outside the kingdom, for companies and individuals, including the financing of commercial, industrial and infrastructure projects.

The bank describes itself as “one of the largest financial institutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East,” and says it is a major arranger of syndicated loans for oil, petrochemical and infrastructure projects. In March 2016 Argaam’s study of Gulf banks by assets placed it tenth at the end of 2015, and Forbes Middle East included it in its list of the 30 most valuable banks of 2025. It says it employs more than 7,000 people and gives its national employment rate as 96 per cent.

Branches, Riyad Capital and Sharia-compliant products.

Most of the business is at home. The bank says it works through 332 licensed branches and more than 1,600 cash machines across Saudi Arabia; Forbes Middle East counted 333 branches in March 2025. Abroad, it keeps a branch in London, an agency in Houston and a representative office in Singapore, according to both the bank and Forbes Middle East.

Its investment arm is Riyad Capital, a closed joint-stock company wholly owned by the bank and licensed by the Capital Market Authority for dealing, underwriting, arranging, advice and custody, Arabic Wikipedia says; through it the bank also offers brokerage on the capital markets, asset management and a range of investment funds. Other wholly owned subsidiaries listed there include Ithraa Riyad, a real-estate company that holds property used as security for financing; an insurance agency that sells cover from an outside insurer to the bank’s customers; and Esnad Riyad, a human-resources company set up in 2020 to serve the group.

The bank says it offers a full range of products and services “fully compliant with the Islamic Sharia’,” overseen by a Shari’a committee and an Islamic banking department. One example on its website is tawarruq finance, a financing arrangement built on the purchase and resale of a commodity rather than an interest-bearing loan. In September 2024 it completed a sustainable sukuk issue — a sukuk being an Islamic finance certificate structured around assets rather than interest — Forbes Middle East reported.

In December 2018 Riyad Bank opened preliminary talks with National Commercial Bank about a possible merger and hired Goldman Sachs as adviser, English Wikipedia records. The bank still appears under its own name in the Forbes Middle East list of 2025.

Gulf banks and their marks.

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.

“We Care, We Win, We are One Team.”

Riyad Bank’s stated vision is “to be the most innovative and trusted financial solutions partner,” and its values are three short phrases: “We Care, We Win, We are One Team.” Its customer programmes run in tiers named Silver, Golden and Diamond, with private banking above them, and its rewards scheme is called Hassad, Arabic for harvest. Its digital channels carry the bank’s name — Riyad Online, Riyad Mobile, Riyad Line and Riyad ATM — and it offers an app for smartwatches; in March 2018 it launched contactless payment wristbands, English Wikipedia says.

Its website runs in Arabic and English and is divided into personal, private, small-business, corporate and investor-relations sections, with a separate page for its football partnership. The personal range covers current and savings accounts, Mada debit cards and credit cards, among them an Al Fursan card, as well as personal finance, auto-leasing and home finance for ready-built and off-plan property.

Much of its public image comes from sport and social programmes. The bank is a partner of Al-Hilal, the Riyadh football club, and its chief executive, Nadir Al-Koraya, speaks on the bank’s website of “a distinguished model of investment in Saudi sports.” Its social-responsibility programme, Bukra — Arabic for tomorrow — is aligned with Saudi Vision 2030 and organised around pillars called Empower, Develop and Conserve. The bank says Bukra aims to plant four million trees, and that a “Tree for Tomorrow” scheme plants 100 trees for each Al-Hilal goal.

For a design guide, Riyad Bank shows how a bank can carry its city’s name through every channel, programme and sponsorship. Compare Saudi National Bank and Al Rajhi Bank, two other Riyadh banks. For this guide we use a deep indigo, a palm green and a warm sand with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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