Banks Street. Baher Amin © The Peninsula
Doha: Assets and revenues at Qatar's Islamic banks have grown over the past year despite the Gulf crisis, data showed.
Qatar has been under blockade since June last year, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with the world's top exporter of liquefied natural gas.
The state's four full-fledged Islamic banks’ focus on Qatar's domestic market have helped them to weather the crisis, according to data from the Islamic Financial Services Board.
Qatar Islamic Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Qatar International Islamic Bank and Barwa Bank held a combined 358.6 billion riyals ($96 billion) in assets in the first quarter of this year, an 8.8 percent increase from a year earlier.
Most of that increase was due to their holdings of Islamic bonds, which stood at 65.1 billion riyals in the first quarter, a 37.7 percent rise from a year ago.
The Malaysia-based IFSB, which sets the standards for Islamic finance, published the data on Qatar for the first time as part of its quarterly reporting on the industry.
The banks reported a combined 3.9 billion riyals in revenues in the first quarter, an 18.6 percent increase. Non-performing finance expanded to 2.9 billion riyals from 1.7 billion riyals a year ago.
Capital adequacy and profitability measures were mostly unchanged, but foreign exchange financing decreased by 7 percent, IFSB data showed.
