RAK Bank reports boosted profits

The National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah has reported a net profit of 228 million UAE dirham (R459 million) for the first quarter 2010, states Zawya.

This reflects a 42.2% growth compared to first quarter of 2009, and 16.7% over the fourth quarter of 2009. The bank attributes this to its focus on products core to its business model, namely the small to medium-size enterprise, small business financing, mortgages and personal lending.

"Although economic recovery is subdued, there remain good lending opportunities,” says GM Graham Honeybill.

Aastra has signed an agreement with Lan 1 as a distributor to tackle the SME market, says ARN.

Lan 1 says about 70% of its resellers provide services to both SME and enterprise sectors, making it a good candidate for the unified communications (UC) vendor.

“UC is certainly a growth area and we will continue to push into the markets that offer good return for us and our partners,” says Mathew Bertram, Lan 1 marketing manager.

Intellitia has unveiled a 'pay-as-you-go' pricing option for the Intellibase 2.0, a database of key decision-makers, reports PR-Inside.

The database forms a business-to-business database for IT companies. The solution allows SMEs to access a validated database to drive immediate improvements in lead generating activities.

“Intellitia's pay-as-you-go model enables businesses to receive the full advantage of its marketing tool Intellibase with dramatically reduced entry costs," says Sameer Arora, director of business development at Intellitia.