Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani bin Abdullah Al Thani, Chairman of the Board and Managing Director, QIIB, and other officials during the meeting.
Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB) has maintained stable growth and achieved the best returns for shareholders and best services and benefits for customers, said Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani bin Abdullah Al Thani, Chairman of the Board and Managing Director, QIIB. He was addressing the Annual General Assembly Meeting which was held virtually.
Shareholders approved the Board of Directors’ recommendation to distribute 32.5 percent of the bank capital as cash dividends of QR0.325 per share.
“The year 2020 was a new test for the strength, durability and resilience of the Qatari economy, in the face of the difficulties encountered by all Countries. It is with thanks to God almighty and the wise strategy pursued by the Qatari Government and the supervisory authorities to support the Qatari economy in various areas, under the directives and patronage of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Bank was able to triumph over all factors and circumstances,” he said.
He said that the Bank has continued its policy of focusing on the domestic market, particularly in view of the significant opportunities that contribute to the development process and the achievement of the objectives of Qatar’s National Vision 2030, some of which have been achieved and others on the way to realization.
Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani bin Abdullah Al Thani said, “We have been working to seizing better opportunities to achieve gains for the Bank. We have continued to work hard with the Executive Management to achieve our goals. We have also worked closely with various economic sectors within Qatar and have sought to diversify our investment and financing portfolios to the extent possible in order to spread potential risks,” he said.
“This has enhanced the position of QIIB as a leading Bank, by maintaining stable growth on a continuous basis, achieving the best returns for shareholders and the best services and benefits for customers.
In addition to the key performance indicators achieved by QIIB, global credit rating agencies have strongly recognized the Bank’s financial position with Moody’s and Fitch Ratings affirmed the Bank’s rating at the A2 and A levels with a stable outlook.
This is due to the high quality of the Banks assets and the strength of profitability indicators compared to our local counterparts. The Bank has maintained good operating efficiency management with a high-quality investment portfolio, and an apparent decline in the irregular financing rate.
QIIB has been able to maintain the strength of its financial position and the stability of its growth, as well as building partnerships of different investment dimensions abroad based on its distinctive reputation and that of the leading Qatari Economy.
The Bank’s financial outcomes for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020, demonstrate that we have been able to achieve the equilibrium of maintaining financial and profitable stability, whilst overcoming the negative market factors during 2020 and through the pandemic. The Board of Directors at QIIB have developed an integrated contingency strategy to face unexpected events and risks. The plan focused on enhancing the Bank’s operational performance, taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the Qatari Economy and effectively coordinating with the various business sectors in order to adapt to emergency conditions. We have largely succeeded in this strategy, as QIIB indicators have continued to grow, maintaining stability and most importantly, enhancing operational efficiency.
In our quest for sustained scaling-up of performance, QIIB has relied on strategic planning to keep pace with local, regional and international variables in order to reach our desired outcomes. The Bank has also relied, in its policies, on encouraging country competencies to engage in banking, and providing all necessary incentives.
The meeting approved Board of Directors recommendation to issue Sukuk qualified as Tier 2 capital up to $1bn and after obtaining the necessary approvals from the supervisory authorities providing that, the conditions and size of the issuance will be subject to a study of the bank’s needs and market conditions.
The meeting approved the recommendation to extend last year General Assembly approval to issue Additional Tier1 Sukuk nonconvertible into an ordinary shares up to QR3bn (Issued Sukuk should not exceed the bank’s capital and reserves).
Dr Abdulbasit Ahmed Al Shaibei, CEO of QIIB said that QIIB derives its robust financial position from the strength of the Qatari economy and the advantages and great opportunities it is offering. And we are glad to be in tandem with the success achieved by most of the Qatari economic sectors, knowing that such successes put the spotlight on our country- at the regional and international levels, and among world companies.
He said the results of QIIB activities during the year 2020 had special significance, especially in the light of the circumstances and challenges we have been going through.
“We can say that, we could surpass the challenges and achieve stability in the performance of the bank, whereas the net profits reached QR937.7m at the end of 2020 compared to QR927m at the end of 2019, indicating a growth rate of 1.2%, although the bank supported the funding and investments assets allocations with QR397m in the year 2020, and the earnings per share reached QR0.55,” he said.
He said that QIIB endeavored throughout the year 2020 to rationalise and control the expenditures, which helped us improve the operational efficiency (cost-earnings ratio) to 20.3%, compared to 24.1% at the end of 2019. This was one of the best indicators at local and international levels.
He said the bank worked on improving the quality of the portfolio of funding assets by decreasing the non-performing loans at the end of 2020 to 1.6% compared to 1.9% at the end of 2019, a fact that confirms the efficiency of the policies of debt collection and credit risk management at the bank.
He said QIIB results for the year 2020 reveal that the bank could maintain its indicators at an upward pace despite the challenges that we have faced.
The personnel at the bank expended great efforts during the last year in order to face the pandemic outbreak, and our employees could competently prove their ability to convert challenges into opportunities.
QIIB could achieve significant progress in the process of digital transformation, knowing that the bank had an effective transformation plan in the field of digital banking services, which started many years ago.
And it was actually moving as per the adopted plans, but the circumstances that followed the pandemic outbreak turned everything upside down, and changed the behaviour and views regarding the banking services in their traditional form, which prompted the bank to take accelerated steps to increase the services through the digital channels.
This means the plans that were supposed to be achieved by the bank in this field in a period of years, were mostly realised within a few months, he said.
