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NEWS
Qatar central bank puts weight behind major Islamic bank merger
Q
atar’s central bank has high hopes for a merger between three Islamic banks in the nation: Masraf Al
Rayan, Barwa Bank and International Bank of Qatar. The three institutions have been in deep talks over a coming-together, yet managed to miss the target date of late-2017 for the completion of the proposed deal. According to sources familiar with the matter, who spoke to Reuters, the deal has the overwhelming support of shareholders across all three banks.
It is estimated that a successful merger will create a lender with more than 180 billion Qatari riyals ($49.5 billion) in assets.
The merger is part of a Qatari initiative to protect the country’s financial sector, following the severing of diplomatic and transport ties with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. Doha has accused its neighbours of economic sabotage and currency manipulation. Sheikh Abdullah told Arabic-language Lusail newspaper that the central bank would ensure there would be hard currency access and that it was meeting banks daily to control liquidity levels.
Masraf Al Rayan was incorporated under Qatari commercial law in
2006 and launched in October of that year. Headquartered in Doha, the bank offers variety of products and services such as current and saving accounts, time deposit accounts, financing and credit cards. It also offers wholesale banking products and services, such as corporate finance & advisory services, financing products, cash management. As of December 2016, Masraf Al Rayan had a total of 13 branches across Qatar, as well as 84 ATMs in operation.
Barwa Bank, which holds capital of about $8.45 billion, is the newest of the three Islamic banks, having been founded in 2008. It provides “a full range” of Shari’ah-compliant banking services including retail, corporate and commercial
banking, business banking, private banking, real estate finance, structured finance, investments and asset management.
International Bank of Qatar, also based in Doha, operates as a private bank, having been founded in 1956 as Ottoman Bank. It gained its current moniker when National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) acquired a 20% stake in the bank and assumed management responsibilities. In July 2007, NBK increased its share of the bank to 30% and sold them back to Qatari investors in 2014.
CivilisedBank relinquishes licence to get more time to build IT systems
C
ivilisedBank, a new UK bank targeting British SMEs set to launch in the next few months, has given up its banking licence after not managing to build the sufficient IT
infrastructure in time for the launch.
The bank said that this was only temporary, however, and it would reapply in the future, after spending “more time to develop its technology platform”.
The bank intends to build a relationship-focused business banking operation following the model of Sweden’s Handelsbanken.
The licence was granted by the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority in May 2017, but this same institution can revoke a firm’s licence if it does not start activity within 12 months.
“For us, it is essential that we can deliver an optimal customer offering, so we prefer to delay this stage of our development and have more time to get it right,” said Chris Jolly, CivilisedBank non-executive chairman, adding that the company did not want to “try to rush through our current IT development phase”.
The bank said it had the support of Warwick Capital Partners, its main shareholder.
Warwick co-chief investment officer, Ian Burgess, said: “We are fully supportive of the management team’s decision to extend the IT build phase with the subsequent impact on its banking licence. With the latest technology platform, CivilisedBank will stand out as a specialist bank offering a peerless banking service to the SME market designed to enable relationship banking and taking speedy credit decisions.”
www.ibsintelligence.com | © IBS Intelligence 2018
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Lagrande Entreprise/pixabay
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