By: Eman Ghaly
Mubasher: Profits of the banks listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) increased 9% year-on-year during the third quarter of 2018, according to Mubasher’s statistics.
Lenders’ profits amounted to QAR 6.14 billion ($1.70 billion) in Q3-18, up from QAR 5.64 billion ($1.57 billion) in the same quarter a year earlier.
The banking sector consists of nine companies, namely Qatar National Bank (QNB), Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), Masraf Al Rayan, Doha Bank, Qatar First Bank (QFB), Qatar Commercial Bank (QCB), Khaliji Commercial Bank (KCBK) and Ahli Bank.
Qatari banks witnessed a strong performance in terms of profits and operations, especially QNB and QIB, financial analyst Ahmed Eid told Mubasher.
Eid attributed the third-quarter profit increase to the hike of global interest rates, as Qatar Central Bank (QCB) has raised interest rate in Qatari banks following the US Federal Reserve's move to increase interest rate by 0.25% to 2.25%.
The decision came along with the Fed's and other central banks’ decisions in September of raising the key interest rate by 25 basis points to a range of 2% to 2.25%.
Eid added that QFB has witnessed an increase in losses by 13.9% in Q3-18 and 204.8% for the first nine months of 2018, pressured by the bank’s operational performance and investments, which affected its stock performance negatively.
According to Mubaher’s survey, QNB acquired the majority of profits with QAR 3.7 billion, followed by QIB and Masraf Al Rayan with QAR 680 million and QAR 566 million, respectively.
On the other hand, KCBK gained the lowest amount of profits with QAR 134.07 million, while QFB was the sector’s only decliner falling 19.9%.
Nine-month performance
Net profits of the nine listed banks on the Qatari bourse went up 8.2% to QAR 17.77 billion during the nine-month period between January and September, versus QAR 16.43 billion in the same period of the prior year.
QNB, the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa, recorded the highest profit with QAR 10.8 billion for the nine-month period ended September, while KCBK registered the lowest earnings with QAR 469.4 million.
On the negative side, QFB, the leading Shari'ah compliant bank in Qatar, recorded total losses of QAR 425.5 million over the same period.
Indicators
By the end of September, total assets of the Qatari listed banks on the QSE rose 4.3% to QAR 1.48 trillion, compared to QAR 1.42 trillion in the same period the year before, supported by QNB’s assets that reached QAR 853.03 billion.
As for operational performance, operating income of Qatari banks advanced 4.88% year-on-year to QAR 34.4 billion for the period the nine-month period ended September.
Financial services
Losses of financial services companies surged 106.7% to QAR 17.6 million in Q3-18 from QAR 8.5 million in Q3-17.
The banking sector comprises four financial services firms, namely Qatar Oman Investment, National Leasing Holding Company, Islamic Holding Group and Dlala Brokerage and Investment Holding.
The four companies turned to loss during the first nine months of this year, recording a total loss of QAR 6.9 million, from QAR 4.7 million in the same period of the previous year.
Translated by: Kholoud Mohamed Hussein
