(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has announced its recognition as ‘The Best Bank for SMEs in Qatar' at the Asiamoney Middle East's Best Bank Awards 2020.
The award is testament to QIB's SME-centric approach in providing innovative financial services to small and medium-sized enterprises in Qatar, and of its efforts in supporting the growth of the country's private sector.
In its rationale behind choosing QIB as a winner of the prestigious award, Asiamoney lauded QIB's popular Aamaly (My business) programme for being expressly-designed to provide tailored products and services to SMEs in Qatar.
The programme offers entrepreneurs financial services, advice, and guidance, and features several benefits for SMEs, including special SME-dedicated banking centre, 24-hour banking, payroll services, cash and cheque collection, all types of accounts and time deposits, together with flexible lending and financing options.
Moreover, QIB has excelled in digitising SME financing and launching new products, providing a full package of financial solutions and services to its SME clients. These include Merchant Acquiring Services (POS), an online Wages Protection System (WPS) for the automatic processing of monthly payrolls, as well as a new co-branded corporate credit card in collaboration with Ooredoo, and Corporate Deposit Cards.
The bank has also made a significant contribution to Qatar Development Bank (QDB) Al Dhameen Programme, which encourages SMEs to get the right finance from banks in order to grow their businesses, in addition to other initiatives launched by QDB to offer eased access to financing for Qatari SMEs.
In lights of the Covid-19 outbreak, QIB had a proactive response to the economic implications of the crisis on SMEs, and has immediately postponed financial instalments for SMEs for three months.
To help mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the country's private sector, QIB also took part in ‘The Covid-19 National Guarantee Programme', in implementation of the directives of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to provide financial incentives to the private sector affected by the Covid-19, offering 100% guaranteed finances to private sector companies to help them pay wages and rent fees.
Tarek Fawzi, QIB's Wholesale Banking Group general manager, said: 'We are proud to be recognised once again for our outstanding offerings and support to small and medium-sized enterprises in Qatar.
'QIB provides tailored financial services to national SMEs, and we are a key contributor to customers' which correlates with Qatar National Vision 2030 and its objectives towards building a diversified economy with a thriving private sector that is able to create added value for all citizens and residents of the country.
He added: 'Innovation and digitisation will remain the key frameworks of our offerings to SME customers. We have now reached unprecedented levels of simplifying and accelerating SME financing, and we are committed to continue to introduce innovative, and most secure financial products in the market to meet and exceed the expectations of all our current and future SME customers.
More recently, QIB has seen an acceleration of its digital products and services designed to offer corporate customers the fastest and most secure banking experiences, including the launch of a corporate mobile App, the continued revamping of QIB's corporate Internet banking platform, and the introduction of an automated Remote Deposit Cheque service.
Established in 1989, Asiamoney is a division of global media group Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. The monthly publication reports and offers analysis on the financial and investment markets for capital issuers, borrowers, institutional investors and senior corporate and government monetary decision makers with business interests in Asia.
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