QNB
Qatar National Bank has quietly transformed itself into one of the Middle East’s bigger and better international lenders.
Financially robust, it reported net profit of $3.8 billion in 2018, up 5% from the previous year, while boosting its capital adequacy ratio, trimming its cost-to-income ratio and keeping its share of bad loans below 2%.
It has doubled down on Asia in recent years as it looks to build on a regional network that includes full bank branches in India and Singapore, and rep offices in Myanmar, China and Vietnam. Its standout market in Asia is Indonesia, where it has 37 branches thanks to its 90.96% stake in QNB Indonesia.
India is another important market, both for outbound and inbound business; QNB has joined forces with HDFC Bank to offer rupee-denominated remittance services to non-resident Indians living in the Gulf state.
The next few years will be central to the bank’s – and the country’s – long-term development. At the sovereign level, Qatar is preparing to host the next football World Cup in 2022, while striving to diversify away from hydrocarbons to meet objectives set out in its National Vision 2030.
QNB – which is rated A+ by Fitch and A by Standard & Poor’s, and which is currently managed by acting group chief executive Abdulla Mubarak Al-Khalifa – continues to press ahead with its plan to establish a strong foothold in many of Asia’s more competitive markets, and to become a leading financial-services provider in southeast Asia by 2020, while continuing to expand its footprint in the Middle East and Africa.