Doha Bank, one of the largest private commercial bank in the State of Qatar, has recently been awarded the “Best Commercial Bank in the Middle East 2009” by the prestigious Banker Middle East Awards 2009 for Excellence during a glittering ceremony held in Bahrain on June 10, 2009. The ceremony was attended by H. E. Mr. Rasheed Mohammed Al Maraj, Governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain and other government officials, academicians, regulators, dignitaries and senior bankers across the Middle East region and the globe. Doha Bank was the only bank from Qatar to get an award at the function.
The award conferred on Doha Bank is in recognition of the trust and confidence by the global financial services community and an acknowledgement of Doha Bank’s customer centric approach and progressive outlook committed in providing one-stop-financial service experience to its ever expanding global customer base.
The performance of Doha Bank over the last five years has been exemplary, sustaining the best performance ratios in the Middle East region year-after-year with Return on Equity at 25.78% and the Return on Asset at 2.74% as at 31 December 2008. Further the Shareholder Equity has grown more than four times to QAR 4.9 billions as at 31 December 2008 and the annual net profit has grown to QAR 947 millions for the year ended 31 December 2008. The total assets have crossed QAR 30 billions, achieving a y-o-y growth of 2.27%, deposits registering y-o-y growth of 16% and annual net profit registering a y-o-y growth of 30%.
H.E. Sheikh Fahad Bin Mohammad Bin Jabor Al Thani, Chairman Doha Bank, while expressing his happiness on the occasion, said “We at Doha Bank are absolutely focused in our objective towards creating a strong, customer-centric and socially responsible financial service provider within the global market space”.
H.E. Sheikh Abdul Rehman Bin Mohammad Bin Jabor Al Thani, Managing Director Doha Bank, while expressing his happiness on the occasion as well, said “Doha Bank is taking many strategic initiatives to provide the best value to our customers, our stakeholders and to our society at large. Our dedicated team of professionals has consistently set high standards in performance, innovation, security and quality, being the hallmarks of Doha Bank, in this highly competitive market. It will be our ongoing challenge to manage and sustain these strengths and Doha Bank is proactively enhancing these in the current year”.
Mr. R. Seetharaman, Chief Executive Officer Doha Bank while expressing his happiness on receiving the award said “It is the Doha Bank’s Board’s visionary and participative leadership philosophy, which has taken Doha Bank to newer heights. The Bank has been completely transformed into a dynamic entity with strong values and customer-centric approach. The Board has steered Doha Bank to become a market pioneer in introducing innovative products and services”.
The exclusive Banker Middle East Awards for Excellence are granted after a careful scrutiny of a number of sustainable financial and economic parameters that are important in judging the performance and productivity level for any organization.
Doha Bank has been applauded by renowned financial sector analysts for its pioneering and leadership role in taking Financial Services experience in Middle Eastern region to newer heights. Banker Middle East has adjudged Doha Bank as the – “Best Commercial Bank 2007” & “Best Bank in Middle East - 2006”. In addition, Doha Bank has also bagged the Euromoney Award for Excellence 2005 , Euromoney Best Bank in 2008 for sustainable performance Banker Middle East award as the “Best commercial Bank in Middle East - 2005” and The Banker Financial Times award as “Banker of Year for Qatar for 2003 and 2004.
About Doha Bank
Doha Bank is the largest private commercial bank in the State of Qatar. It was incorporated in 1978 and commenced its banking business (including its International Banking services) in Doha, Qatar on March 15, 1979.
As one of Qatar's leading financial services company, Doha Bank is committed to making banking work for customers and clients like it never has before. Through innovative technologies and the ingenuity of its people, Doha Bank provides individuals and commercial, corporate and institutional clients across Qatar and even internationally, new and better ways to manage their financial lives. The company enables customers to do their banking and investing whenever, wherever and however they choose through an extensive network, and multiple access channels.
Doha Bank now has established a dominant position in Middle East banking landscape with 28 state-of-art branches, 5 Islamic branches, 11 e-branches, 11 pay offices, 2 mobile units in Doha, 1 mobile unit in Dubai with more than 100 ATMs. Geographically Doha Bank operations are spread across State of Qatar with full fledged branches in New York-USA, Dubai-UAE and another in Kuwait, representative offices in Istanbul-Turkey, Tokyo-Japan, Singapore, Shanghai-China and Bucharest-Romania and an extremely strong network of correspondent banking relationship.
Doha Bank provides comprehensive range of financial service products and services basket, unparalleled in the Middle East region, by deploying consumer centric technology and innovative delivery channels. Doha Bank offers financial services to all the customer segments through its retail banking, wholesale banking, Doha Islamic, banc assurance and treasury and investments divisions. Doha Islamic has matured very fast and offers the most comprehensive set of products. The product basket addresses each stage of an individual life cycle such as education, consumer goods, hajj, managing and settling debts.
An area of high focus is the high net worth segment and the bank is continually providing new services to cater to this segment. Augmented investment services to offer a comprehensive range of wealth management services with introduction of various investment schemes from all over the world to cater to specific customer segments. We have expanded our corporate services to provide corporate finance and project finance advisory Services to both the private and public sectors in Qatar in various subjects such as mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, valuations, privatization work, financial restructuring, etc
Further, Doha Bank also expanded its service network through establishing a 100% owned insurance company Doha Bank Assurance Company offering comprehensive general insurance solutions and through associate company Doha Brokerage & Financial Services for providing comprehensive brokerage and asset management solutions. These strategic initiatives are in line with Doha Bank’s strategic vision to converge as One-stop Financial Service provider.
International rating agencies, Moody’s, Standard & Poor, Capital Intelligence and Fitch Ratings, have assigned a stable outlook for Doha Bank owing to its consistently strong financial fundamentals, asset quality, and robust liquidity.
Significant cost rationalization was achieved with deployment of several consumer centric technology solutions, such as bank-on-wheel with customer service representative and Self servicing ATM unit, internet banking system with a range of on-line and request based features and opening up of electronic branches with self servicing kiosk. Launched DBank product suite.
The Dubai branch of Doha Bank was opened in 2008.
