Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has been recently recognised by Global Finance as the “Best Islamic Retail Bank” in the world for the first time since its foundation.
This global award is the living proof of QIB’s prominent position in international Islamic finance, it said. QIB has also been awarded the “Best Islamic Bank” in Qatar. The awards were given on the strength of QIB’s financial performance, its embrace of cutting-edge banking technologies, and its customer-centric approach to both its product offering and the overall banking experience.
Each year, Global Finance magazine, a respected source of finance industry data for global and emerging markets, releases its list of the “Best Islamic Finance Institutions in the World.”
To select each year’s winners, the editorial team of Global Finance confers with industry experts, assesses financial performance metrics, and factors in additional criteria such as a bank’s reputation and customers satisfaction.
“QIB is honoured to receive such high commendation from Global Finance and we are proud of our achievements that led to be recognised as the ‘Best Islamic Retail Bank’ on a global scale. We want our clients to enjoy banking with us and these awards reflect our success in that regard,” said Bassel Gamal, QIB Group CEO. “We continuously work to improve the customer experience and to offer our customers the exact products and services that satisfy their specific financial needs. To that regard, we also offer segmented propositions like our ‘Tamayuz’ (affluent) programme, QIB Private Banking, and our award-winning ‘Aamaly’ proposition, tailored for the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.”
The bank recently announced results for the three-month period ending March 31. Net profit grew to QR492mn, a 23% increase compared to the first quarter of 2015. Total assets rose 3% compared to December 2015 and now stand at QR131bn.
The bank’s financing activities climbed QR4bn between December 2015 and March 2016 to reach QR91bn, an increase of 4%. Total income for the three-month during the first quarter of 2016 reached QR1.29bn, compared to QR950mn at end of March 2015.
During this time, QIB further improved the ratio of non-performing financing portfolio to gross financing portfolio to less than 1%, one of the lowest in the industry, reflecting the quality of the bank’s financing assets portfolio and its effective risk management framework.
The bank continued to pursue its conservative impairment policy with an improved coverage ratio for non-performing financing portfolio at 112% as of March 2016.
QIB recently modernised its four largest branches and is engaged in a phased rollout of the updated design at its other key branches. The new design reflects a modern interpretation of the traditional Islamic values of purity, simplicity and transparency.
Each branch has a special section for the bank’s Tamayuz clients, and a separate area for female customers to enjoy complete privacy.
In April 2016, Fitch Ratings has affirmed QIB’s Long Term Issuer Default Rating at “A+” with a stable outlook reflecting the bank’s established franchise in Qatar, its sound asset quality, solid funding, and liquidity profile.
Capital Intelligence has also reaffirmed QIB’s Financial Strength Rating of “A” with a stable outlook in view of very good asset quality, strong capital ratios, and improved coverage ratio.
QIB’s net profit in Q1 grew to QR492mn, a 23% increase compared to the first quarter of 2015. Total assets rose 3% and now stand at QR131bn.
