Jamal Al Kishi, Deutsche Bank AG's CEO for the Middle East and Africa, said the bank plans to expand its operations in Saudi Arabia and to hire staff in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as it expects sovereign bond sales and IPOs to drive deals in 2018, Bloomberg News reported.

The German lender has built up a 90-person team in Saudi Arabia on expectations that the kingdom's bourse may be lifted to emerging market status by two major index providers in 2018, the Feb. 27 report said. Al Kishi reportedly said the bank expects private companies to tap markets for both equity and debt.

"Should markets remain stable, we expect a good increase in deal volume coming to the regional markets this financial year," Al Kishi told Bloomberg. In 2017, Deutsche Bank stood as the eighth-largest bond and sukuk manager in the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to data gathered by the newswire.

In July 2017, Peter Hinder, the bank's head of wealth management for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Switzerland, said the Middle East is a priority region for wealth management, with the bank looking to hire relationship managers and expand product offers to rich clients in the Gulf, the newswire added.