Qatar National’s profits drop by 15% during 2020

The net profit of Qatar National Bank (QNB) decreased by 15% and amounted to 9.5 billion riyals (2.6 billion dollars) for the nine months of the current year ending on September 30, compared to a net profit of 11.2 billion riyals for the same period of the year 2019, while the total increased Assets by 8% to 986 billion riyals (271 billion dollars).
The Qatar National Bank Group stated, in a statement today, Sunday, that due to the global economic conditions, it has chosen to continue to follow a conservative policy to build additional reserves for potential loan losses by registering more loan loss provisions of 19 billion riyals, as a precaution to protect the group from any negative impacts. This has affected the group’s total profits as a result of the current global economic conditions due to the Corona pandemic.

Total loans and advances increased by 10% to reach 717 billion riyals, the growth was mainly funded by customer deposits, which rose by 8% to reach 715 billion riyals, and operating income increased by 1% to reach 19.2 billion riyals.

The Group implemented several new initiatives, with the aim of reducing expenses and raising the level of operational efficiency. This helped improve the efficiency ratio (cost to income ratio) to 24.2%, compared to 7.025% for the previous year.
The non-performing loan ratio as a percentage of the total loan portfolio reached a level of 2%, which is one of the lowest rates among the major banks in the region, which reflects the high quality of the loan portfolio and the effectiveness of the credit risk management policy.

The Group also maintained the non-performing loan coverage ratio at 104%, which reflects the conservative approach it adopts towards non-performing loans.
And last September, the group announced the successful completion of the issuance of green bonds worth $ 600 million, which is the first green bond issued from Qatar and the largest green bond issuance from a financial institution in the Arab world.
The Qatar National Bank Group serves more than 20 million customers with the support of 29,000 employees across 1,100 locations and more than 4,300 ATMs.