In an increasingly competitive Middle Eastern banking market, what makes QNB stand out from its peers?
To compete successfully, we rely on our winning strategy and value proposition. Our strong ratings, brand value, relationships and our international network are also key factors in our success.
Standard & Poor’s rates the bank A+, Moody’s Aa3 and Fitch A+, making us one of the highest-rated banks in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.
We continue to grow our brand value that currently stands at $8.4bn and have maintained our status as MEA’s most valuable banking brand. Finally, with a network that spans 28 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, we are able to leverage our relationships as a full-service financial institution across a range of hard-to-access frontier and emerging markets.
What are some of the highlights from the bank’s most recent set of financial results?
In 2023, QNB Group delivered robust net profit of $4.3bn, an increase of 8% over the previous year. Operating income was $10.7bn, an 11% increase. As a result, QNB remains the largest bank in the MEA region, and one of the world’s top 50 banks in terms of market capitalisation, which reached $42bn. One of QNB’s strategic focuses is cost efficiency, where QNB Group has been able to maintain a market-leading cost-to-income ratio of 20%. In addition, our capital adequacy ratio remains comfortably high at 19.8%, well above both the Qatar Central Bank and Basel III requirements.
Across its corporate lending business, where is QNB seeing the most activity?
In the domestic corporate banking sphere, the multi-billion dollar North Field Expansion project is a major opportunity for us to continue to support Qatar’s development in the coming years.
We are actively supporting initiatives across the value chain, ranging from wells, pipelines, LNG storage tanks, new LNG tankers, all the way through to the expansion of Qatar’s refining and downstream capacity.
Internationally, one of the key markets that presents a big growth potential for us is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, we see significant growth potential in our international branches in London, Paris, Singapore and Hong Kong. These financial centres allow us to capture market share for trade and investment flows with global and multinational corporate customers to fuel our growth.
How is the bank approaching the growth of FinTech and digitalisation?
Changes in the regulatory landscape, customer behaviours and the entry of new FinTech competitors are increasingly challenging the ways of operating in the banking sector.
This is leading to technological disruption and more financial disintermediation. Areas where QNB is exploring FinTech opportunities range from payments and digital wallets to solutions that provide further automation, integrate artificial intelligence and leverage machine learning.
Our QNB digital 3.0 programme focuses on investing in our IT capabilities to enable digitisation through the adoption of new technologies, and uplifting of our IT architecture and infrastructure. This improves efficiency and accelerates decision-making in a more customer-centric manner across our processes end-to-end.
To what extent do sustainability and environmental, social and governance issues feature in the bank’s approach to lending and its own internal operations?
Banks play an important role in contributing to financial stability and economic growth. As the largest financial institution in MEA, we recognise the importance of ESG and have consequently embedded the topic of sustainability in our strategy, business and operating model. As a bank, the most impactful way to address the topic of sustainability is through our financing activities, which are supported by our Sustainable Finance and Product Framework which offers over 30
sustainable products across all our businesses. Ensuring ESG is prioritised across our operations strengthens our governance while reducing environmental and social risks, all with the intent to make a positive contribution to our society and the environment.
What are the bank’s strategic priorities over the next three to five years?
QNB’s vision is to be one of the leading banks in MEA. Our strategy consists of three elements: focus on our core of being an international wholesale bank; leverage innovation as a strategic enabler; and embed sustainability into our business and operating model.
Focusing on our core means further uplifting our wholesale banking capabilities by enhancing our value propositions as a solution-led wholesale bank. The second element is to leverage innovation as a strategic enabler, capitalising on developments such as open banking, platforms, data and analytics, AI, digitisation and automation. At the same time, our strategy embeds sustainable practices across our business and operating model to deliver positive impact along ESG-related topics.