QNB, the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa, has witnessed a huge rise in use of digital banking. Over 83 percent of its customers now use digital channels to perform banking transactions.
“The investments that we have made over the past few years have paid off, allowing us to continue to serve customers remotely in a safe and secure fashion,” said QNB in its latest Annual Report.
“During the pandemic, we ramped up our digital migration efforts, achieving strong growth in internet and mobile banking usage across our entire network. In Qatar, more than 83 percent of our customers now bank through our digital channels. Furthermore, nearly 98 percent of all retail transactions in Qatar were through digital and remote channels,” said the report.
The increased use of digital channels reflects the success of efforts taken in the past by the bank. The bank had taken several initiatives and launched products and services to promote digital banking.
QNB has played a leading role in the banking sector in contactless payments technology. It was the first bank to roll out WhatsApp banking in Qatar, giving its customers another alternative for doing banking on digital platform. Through this channel, our customers are able to access information on the bank’s products and services quickly and in a familiar platform.
“In 2020, we further enhanced our mobile and online banking functionalities, deployed self-service solutions and expanded our offering to more network countries,” said the report.
In December last year, the bank launched Apple Pay online payment acceptance in Qatar. Adding Apple Pay as a payment option has allowed merchants to provide their customers with a seamless shopping experience and increase their online sales. Users now have the ability to use Apple Pay to make secure payments on websites and online stores that support Apple Pay.
In January this year, QNB launched QNB Pay, a new and innovative platform of its mobile banking app, which includes QNB card digitisation that provides mobile card-less payments. In the same month, the bank partnered with Garmin and Fitbit to make Garmin Pay and Fitbit Pay available to QNB customers in Qatar for the first time, through its contactless payments platform, QNBpay.
QNB was the first bank in Qatar to introduce contactless payment services way back in 2012. Since then, QNB has been working on several fronts within the cards and payment services to leverage the alternative payment solutions.
