Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has posted a first half net profit of QR1.05bn, up 18% on the same period last year.
The bank’s total assets stood at QR135bn in H1, up 15% on June 2015, driven by a continued growth in the financing activities.
QIB’s financing assets have reached QR97bn in H1, up QR20bn (or a 25% increase) on June 2015.  Customer deposits of the bank stood at QR95bn and total shareholders’ equity reached QR13bn.
Total Income for the six month period that ended in June reached QR2.65bn compared to QR2.07bn in June last year.
Income from financing and investing activities reached QR2.28bn in end-June compared to QR1.8bn for the six month period that ended in June 2015.
Net fee and commission income accounted for QR268mn in June compared with QR210mn for the six month period that ended in June 2015.
QIB was “able to maintain” 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 said it continued to pursue the conservative impairment policy with a coverage ratio for non-performing financing portfolio at 93% as of June.
In April 2016, Fitch Ratings affirmed QIB’s Long Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘A+’ with a stable outlook reflecting the bank’s established franchise in Qatar, its sound asset quality, solid funding and liquidity profile with a franchise that is more diversified than that of many peers and taking into account the bank’s adequate profitability, and satisfactory capital and leverage ratios.
Standard & Poor’s Rating Services has also retained QIB’s Counterparty Credit Rating at ‘A-’ and Capital Intelligence reaffirmed QIB’s financial strength rating of ‘A’ with stable outlook.
In light of the bank’s positive results, QIB was recognised by highly reputable international financial publications and has been acknowledged as one of the leading regional Banks.
The Banker — Financial Times Group, named QIB the “Islamic Bank of the Year in the Middle East”, while 2016 also marked the fourth consecutive time that QIB was selected as Qatar’s ‘Islamic Bank of the Year’.
QIB was named for the first time “Qatar’s Best Bank” by Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2016 as well as “Best Islamic Retail Bank in the world” for 2016 by Global Finance.
One of QIB’s latest commendations goes to its Group CEO, Bassel Gamal, who was ranked the first of 100 best-performing CEOs of listed companies in the GCC states by “Trends & Insead Business School”.