QNB, the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, has registered a 5% year-on-year growth in net profit to QR13.8bn in 2018 despite the impact of Turkish Lira devaluation. The lender has recommended 60% cash dividend to shareholders.

The financial results for 2018 along with the profit distribution are subject to the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) approval. The bank’s earnings-per-share amounted to QR14.4 at the end of 2018 compared to 13.7 a year ago.

"QNB demonstrated strong, sustainable and profitable growth, delivering a solid performance for 2018,” according to its acting chief executive Abdulla Mubarak al-Khalifa.

The lender's operating income showed a 7% annual expansion to QR24.5bn, reflecting its success in maintaining growth across the range of revenue sources.

The group’s drive for operational efficiency is yielding cost-savings in addition to sustainable revenue generating sources, thus helping QNB Group improve the efficiency ratio (cost-to-income ratio) to 25.8% in 2018 against 29.1% the previous year, which is considered one of the best among large financial institutions in the MEA region.

Total assets reached QR862bn, registering a year-on-year growth of 6% in 2018. The key driver of total assets growth was from loans and advances, which grew 5% to QR613bn. This was mainly funded by customer deposits, which increased 5% to QR617bn.

Despite this, QNB’s strong asset liability management capabilities helped it improve loans-to-deposits ratio to 99.3% at the end of December 31, 2018.

On the credit quality, the ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans stood at 1.9% as on December 31, 2018, a level considered one of the lowest amongst financial institutions in the MEA region and reflecting the high quality of the group’s loan book and the effective management of credit risk.

The conservative policy in regard to provisioning resulted in the coverage ratio at 104% at the end of 2018.

The group capital adequacy ratio (CAR) stood at 19%, which is higher than the regulatory minimum requirements of the QCB and Basel Committee.

"Currency headwinds in our core markets had limited impact on the CAR," the spokesman said.

QNB Group had successfully raised another QR10bn as Additional Tier 1 capital notes, in light of the growth of its activities and operations.

The bank's total equity grew 12% to QR88bn and had liquidity coverage ratio of 124% and net stable funding ratio of 102% at the end of December 31, 2018.

Based on the continuous strong performance and diversified international presence, QNB is the most valuable banking brand in the MEA region with the value of its brand increasing to $4.2bn to rise to the 60th place globally, in addition to attaining the highest rating of 'AA+' in brand strength, making it the only Qatari banking brand among the world’s top 100.

QNB Group serves a customer base of more than 23mn with more than 29,000 staff resources operating from more than 1,100 locations and 4,400 ATMs.