*The country's 'Payment Systems' register growth, both in terms of value and volume compared to the previous year, according to Qatar Central Bank
Qatar’s secure electronic network payment system handled a whopping QR3.9tn in 2017 and registered growth both in terms of value and volume compared to the previous year, according to Qatar Central Bank.
Nearly 85% of the total value was through the internationally-recognised identification code for banks around the world- SWIFT or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
The local NAPS or the National ATM & POS Switch (NAPS), which is an interface that host and settle all local retail electronic transactions flowing between banks in Qatar, handled a similar share in terms of total volume of transactions, QCB said in its 9th 'Financial Stability Review'.
The secure electronic network system in Qatar - QATCH – handles the financial transactions, in Qatari riyals, among the banks within the country.
“Transactions under QATCH last year increased in terms of both value (9.2%) and volume (9.3%) over 2016,” QCB said.
Even though transactions processed by SWIFT system saw only a slight increase in value of 0.6% in 2017, the volume growth of 10.1% indicated that more SWIFT transactions with similar or less value per transaction took place during 2017.
This, according to QCB was also corroborated by the fact that electronic cheques clearing (ECC) declined in both value and volume by 3.9% and 0.7%, respectively, in 2017.
“This amply demonstrates a clear shift from paper-based instruments (cheques) to electronic mode of transactions,” QCB noted.
QMR deposit and loans activities processed through the payment and settlement systems declined both in value and volume terms, compared to the same in previous year that could be due to liquidity requirement by the banking sector during the initial period of the “unjust blockade” that was imposed on Qatar on June 5, 2017.
QCB increased QMR deposit rates twice during 2017 -once in March and again in June last year.
The value and volume of transactions through ATMs and PoS increased over the previous year in the local market while the same declined in the GCC region, QCB said.
“The fall in GCC-wide value and volume of ATM/ PoS transactions could be a reflection of decline in cross-border movements, a fallout of the blockade. However, the impact was neutralised quickly during the subsequent months,” QCB said.
The real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) in 2017 processed on an average 1,639 SWIFT transactions and 587 high value (above
QR250,000) cheques transactions on a daily basis.
In case of SWIFT transactions, value of the transactions registered marginal increase by only 1.5% in comparison with the volume of transactions, which grew by 11.1%.
Unlike SWIFT transactions, both the volume and the value of the cheques transactions fell as compared to the previous year by 7.4% and 11.1%, respectively.
The increase in both volume and value of electronic transactions on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis indicates that a preference towards transacting via electronic medium took place over transacting through cheques during the last year.
The value of individual cheques per transaction continued to fell as value of cheque transactions fell by a higher quantum (11.1%) than the number of cheque transactions, which was 7.4%.
The payments system in Qatar, QCB pointed out “continued to witness a shift from paper-based to electronic payment instruments.”
A QCB analysis of the month-wise volume and value of high value transactions (more than QR250,000) through SWIFT mode and through cheques, indicates that SWIFT transactions remained active across several months, which it said was “reflective of robust interbank market activities” as compared to cheque transactions. The volume of such SWIFT transactions on a daily average basis was more than double (2.8 times) that of cheque transactions, whereas in value terms, SWIFT transactions were nearly 17-times that of cheque transactions, QCB said.