IBQ wins STP award from Citibank

International Bank of Qatar (IBQ) has won the Citi “Straight Through Processing” (STP) award, in recognition of the bank’s “excellent quality and accuracy” in delivering commercial payments and processing transactions in US dollars. 
Muhannad Kamal, IBQ Deputy CEO, said, “We are proud of being granted this prestigious award for the second year in a row in doing business with Citi. It is a strong acknowledgement of the efficiency of our operations vis-à-vis excellent customer service on the payments side and our consistency over the years.”
This award is annually given to the best-in-class banks by their main USD clearer to recognise their success in formatting foreign currency payments. “Straight Through Processing” means the payments sent to the bank for clearing by its correspondents are being processed automatically without human involvement. The award is based on IBQ’s state-of-the-art in-house payments architecture and reflects the Bank’s consistently high SWIFT standards, which facilitate automated processing throughout the payment process. Accuracy in transactions is one of the main criteria for Citi when choosing winners of the award.
Mohsin Almahdi, director (Correspondent Banking Group) at Citi, said, “We are pleased to award IBQ for its state-of-the-art international ‘straight-through-processing’ (STP) electronic payment services. IBQ has once again succeeded in adopting measures in relation to STP of customers’ international electronic payment transfers that fully comply with Citi’s rigorous correspondent banking and processing accuracy criteria.”  Abeer al-Emadi, head (Operations) at IBQ, stressed the importance of customer service in this regard: “This STP award from Citi is a testimony to IBQ’s operational excellence and efficiency and showcases how crucial STP is to the Bank’s customer service. The bank is striving to ensure fast, accurate and reliable execution of payment instructions through continuous investment in technology and people.”