A robust double-digit growth in domestic assets, especially owing to strong private sector credit, helped Doha's commercial banks’ total asset base expand 9% year-on-year at the end of December 2019, according to the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) data.

The commercial banks' total assets stood at QR1.55tn at the end of December 2019 with domestic assets constituting 85% of the total.

The domestic assets witnessed about 12% year-on-year expansion to QR1.32tn at the end of December 31, 2019 on a robust growth trajectory especially in the case of credit, securities portfolio, credit on banks and cash and precious metals.

Total credit of the commercial banks grew about 11% to QR1.04tn. Their domestic credit facilities shot up more than 12% year-on-year to QR964.19bn at the end of review period. They constituted about 85% of the total domestic assets of the banks.

Private sector credit registered a more than 20% year-on-year expansion to QR635.19bn, or 66%, of the total domestic credit at the end of December last year; while public sector credit witnessed a marginal 0.37% decline to QR17.48bn.

The credit activities under non-banking financial institutions witnessed a more than 7% year-on-year decline to QR11.52bn during the review period.

The domestic securities portfolio, which accounted for 14% of domestic assets, registered a more than 12% year-on-year increase to QR178.06bn; of which debt witnessed a more than 9% growth to QR104.13bn, sukuk by more than 16% to QR71.68bn and equity participation by about 41% year-on-year to QR1.8bn.

The domestic debt growth was mainly on account of the government, whose debt rose more than 14% year-on-year to QR94.1bn, whereas those of banks and others declined 29% and 9% to QR6.23bn and QR3.8bn respectively at the end of December 31, 2019.

Of the QR71.68bn domestic Islamic bond, or sukuk, the government’s issuance amounted to QR68.31bn, which registered more than 14% growth; and those from the banks stood at QR2.6bn, which grew about 65% year-on-year during the review period.

The commercial banks' domestic claims on banks amounted to QR65.35bn, which showed about 17% year-on-year growth at the end of December 31, 2019.

However, domestic claims on central bank stood at QR55.38bn, which reported about a 17% yearly decline during the review period. The required reserve was QR37.45bn at the end of December 2019 compared to QR36.04bn a year ago.

The banking sector's cash and precious metals were valued at QR12.81bn at the end of December 31, which grew more than 22% year-on-year.

The commercial banks' domestic other assets amounted to QR27.44bn compared to QR19.3bn at the end of December 2018.


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