NBK acquired 51 per of the bank in the privatisation process and made a subsequent offer to the remaining public shareholders of the bank to give it complete control.

Al Wataany has 26 branches in Egypt and assets worth $2.27bn at the end of 2007. Ibrahim Dabdoub, chief executive of NBK said that Al Watany would not be renamed but would be rebranded to reflect its new ownership as part of NBK. He also plans to double the number of branches in the next two years and introduce more advanced banking systems.