Bahrain's Gulf Finance House (GFH) plans to up its stake in Khaleeji Commercial Bank (KCB) to gain majority ownership, its chairman was quoted as saying by a television channel on Thursday.

Ahmed Al-Mutawa said in an interview with CNBC Arabiya that the sharia-compliant investment firm would increase its stake in KCB to between 52 per cent and 54 per cent once it had received regulatory approval from the Bahraini authorities.

GFH currently owns 47 per cent of KCB, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Increasing its stake to the range indicated by Mutawa would cost GFH between 2.65 million dinars and 3.72 million dinars ($7.03 million-$9.87 million), according to Reuters calculations based on Thursday's closing share price.

KCB and unlisted Bahraini lender Bank Al Khair dropped merger plans in March after they failed to agree terms for the tie-up.

The aborted deal, first announced in June 2013, was one of a wave of bank merger attempts in Bahrain, championed by the central bank as a means to strengthen many of the local institutions following a real estate crash in the wake of the global financial crisis and the island kingdom's political unrest in 2011. - Reuters