Qatar, whose Islamic banking assets reached $154bn as on June this year, is now in the top five destinations in the global Islamic finance industry, according to a top official of the Qatar Central Bank (QCB).
Addressing the fourth IFSB (Islamic Financial Services Board) Innovation forum, QCB Governor HE Sheikh Bandar bin Mohamed bin Saoud al-Thani said Qatar operates a dual banking system with four Islamic banks and has 28% of the banking assets held by Islamic banks.
Quoting 2021 IFSB’s IFSI Stability Report, he said Islamic banking is currently operating in at least 39 jurisdictions, of which it has attained “systemic importance” in 15 jurisdictions, including in Qatar.
“With 6.5% of worldwide Islamic banking assets, Qatar is now on the top five destinations in the Islamic finance industry by establishing prudent supervisory and regulatory polices consistent with relevant international standards,” Sheikh Bandar said.
Highlighting that the QCB has been playing a prominent role in the country’s financial technology ecosystem; he said “with no one-size fits-all approach to digital transformation; we take a systematic and gradual approach.”
With the FIFA World Cup round the corner, the QCB has taken multiple initiatives to ensure safe, quick and affordable digital payments by fostering an ecosystem, he said, in an apparent reference to its latest project to strengthen the payment system.
“QCB has begun multi-year strategic initiatives to modernise the prudential architecture for digitalisation and fintech,” Sheikh Bandar said.
The project to strengthen the infrastructure for payment and settlement system offers several features such as instant transfers and interoperability between a bank account and digital wallet as well as providing a scalable future payment system, capable of supporting the population growth in Qatar and increasing number of transactions for the next 10 years.
In this regard, he said the QCB has issued its first licence for digital payments services to iPay by Vodafone Qatar and Ooredoo Money.
The QCB recently disclosed the banks' readiness to launch Google Pay and that all global digital wallet services for cards, such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, are now accepted in Qatar, which will enable visitors, especially during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, to process and complete their digital payments.
Finding that Qatari lenders have already embarked on green banking and that they are also voluntarily integrating ESG (environment, social and governance) risk analysis into their credit profile and assessment process for corporate clients; he said these are important turning points towards developing a more cohesive and sustainable framework.
Sheikh Bandar said recently digital transformation and climate change have captured the attention of the real economy as well as financial and private sectors. These two developments are transforming the role of the central banks and the financial services industry into digital acceleration and innovation, according to him.
“As a general principle, these two policies fall under the Qatar National Vision 2030, which focuses on achieving a secure cashless society, which enhance financial inclusion as well as captivating sustainable green economy,” he said.
 
 
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