Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), the largest private lender in the country, has been recognised for the second time as the “Bank of The Year: Qatar” by Financial Times’ – The Banker magazine.
This “exceptional” accolade is in recognition of QIB’s outstanding performance through 2020, and its success in outperforming the competition on the levels of financial performance, strategic initiatives, and response to the challenges related to Covide-19 pandemic, the bank said.
“It is a testament to QIB’s stability and sustainable business model. Such recognition can only be achieved through the collective efforts of all the bank’s staff, the continuous support from the board of directors, our clients’ trust, and our genuine commitment to continuous improvement,” said Bassel Gamal, QIB’s group chief executive.
He said 2020 was a year of challenges for the global banking industry, but for QIB it was also a year that it introduced new banking approaches to the Qatari market and implemented successful business continuity while having the safety of the employees and customers as its top priority.
“Thanks to our digital transformation programmes, we are able to offer the fastest and most trusted banking solutions to individuals and corporate customers in Qatar remotely through our mobile and online channels. This has also resulted in attracting new clients to Islamic banking, reconfirming that Islamic banks are now competing with conventional banks across all banking services,” he said.
Being the first bank in Qatar to introduce end-to-end digital products via its mobile app, new customers can now start a relationship and open their first account with QIB remotely within five minutes, the bank said. Existing customers can also get a personal finance and/or a credit card instantly via the mobile app.
Rated ‘A1’, ‘A-/A-2’ and ‘A’ by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch with stable outlooks, QIB has succeeded to maintain “positive” financial performance levels in 2020 regardless of the impact on the global economy due to the pandemic.
The lender’s net profit attributable to the shareholders amounted to QR2.22bn in line with the performance during the same period in 2019.