Robust credit offtake largely helped commercial banks in Qatar to report a strong more than 12% year-on-year jump in their total assets at the end of January 2020, according to the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) data.
The banks' total assets stood at QR1.56tn in the review period with domestic assets constituting more than 85% of the total, according to central bank figures.
Domestic assets witnessed about 14% year-on-year surge to QR1.33tn at the end of January 31, 2020 on robust growth trajectory especially in the case of credit, securities portfolio and claims on banks.
Total credit of the commercial banks grew about 12% to QR1.06tn. Their domestic credit facilities shot up about 14% year-on-year to QR986.14bn at the end of review period. They constituted more than 74% of the total domestic assets of the banks.
Private sector credit registered more than 18% year-on-year expansion to QR698.72bn, or 66% of the total credit at the end of January this year and public sector credit was up a marginal 1% to QR348bn in the review period.
However, the credit facilities under non-banking financial institutions witnessed more than 5% year-on-year decline to QR14.25bn during the review period.
The securities portfolio, which accounted for 12% of domestic assets, registered more than 11% year-on-year increase to QR194.77bn, of which debt witnessed about 9% growth to QR115.99bn and sukuk by about 16% to QR74.22bn.
The total debt growth was mainly on account of QR101.44bn domestic debt, of which those issued by the government was at QR92.51bn. The banks’ debt instruments amounted to QR5.31bn and others QR3.61bn at the end of January 31, 2020.
Of the QR74.22bn sukuk, about 97% or QR71.65bn, came through the domestic route with sovereign issue at QR68.06bn, banks QR2.82bn and others at QR0.77bn during the review period.
The commercial banks' claims on banks amounted to QR148.77bn, which showed about a 24% year-on-year growth at the end of January this year.
Other assets were valued at QR31.43bn, which showed a more than 32% year-on-year expansion in January 2020.
The commercial banks' claim on central bank witnessed more than 2% fall to QR57.32bn and their investments in subsidiaries and associates by about 3% to Qr44.83bn at the end of January this year.
Their cash and precious metals were valued at QR14.11bn at the end of January this year compared to QR10.34bn in the corresponding period of 2019.
In the case of net fixed assets, the commercial banks’ valued them as QR7.09bn at the end of January 31, 2020 against QR6.58bn the previous year period.
