Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) receives Visa award for QIB-Qatar Airways Visa Signature credit card

Source: QIB.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has received the Best New Product in Qatar award for 2015 from Visa International for its QIB-Qatar Airways Visa Signature Co-Branded credit card.

The prestigious award was conferred after considering the unanimous and encouraging response from the customers compared to product offerings of all Qatari banks and taking into account the products’ innovativeness, benefits, and added value to customers.

Launched last May, the QIB-Qatar Airways Signature credit card is designed with premium customers in mind. It offers elite benefits such as global concierge services, global airport lounge access, discounts, automatic purchase protection, warranty extensions, exclusive offers on luxurious hotels, full multi-trip travel insurance and much more.

“The award is testament to QIB’s efforts to provide the best products to its customers,” said D Anand, General Manager of the Personal Banking Group at QIB. “The QIB-Qatar Airways Signature co-branded credit card was developed in response to the needs of our high net-worth customers, many of whom are frequent travellers. The card offers a range of benefits tailored to the lifestyles of these customers, who in many cases have made it their preferred card. We thank our customers for the support they have shown through their frequent usage of the card, which has resulted in recognition from Visa.”

“This super-premium product offers cardholders opportunities to earn miles that could be redeemed for a host of exciting services with Qatar Airways and its OneWorld airline partners around the world,” said Ihab Ayoub, Visa's General Manager for the Middle East and North Africa region of the QIB-Qatar Airways Visa Signature credit card. “Visa’s partnership with QIB is a demonstration of our commitment to Qatar, by offering customers a rewarding payment experience that is innovative, convenient, and secure.”

Interested?

Read the Suroor Asia blog post about the QIB-Qatar Airways Visa Signature credit card

QIB signs new Al-Dhameen Programme agreement

Source: QIB. Abdulaziz Bin Nasser Al-Khalifa, CEO of Qatar Development Bank (QDB), and Bassel Gamal, Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) Group Chief Executive Officer, signed the Al-Dhameen agreement. The ceremony was attended by QDB officials Khalid Abdulla Al Mana, Executive Director of Business Finance and Jawaher Al Noaimi, Al Dhameen Programme Manager. QIB was represented by Tarek Fawzi, General Manager, Wholesale Banking Group, Mazen Al Thalathini, Assistant General Manager-Corporate Banking, and Basem Shahrouri, Head of Business Banking Division. 

Qatar Development Bank (QDB) has signed a new Al-Dhameen Programme Portfolio Agreement with Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) for small and medium enterprise (SME) financing in Qatar. 

Al-Dhameen, which is sponsored by QDB, helps startups and existing companies with lack of collateral to obtain funds for growing their businesses. All main sector business activities are eligible for support under Al-Dhameen except the agriculture, fishing and livestock; non-oil mining and quarrying; wholesale and retail trade; financial and insurance, and real estate industries.

The programme does not provide direct finance to SMEs, instead offering the business owner access to the required finance from a partner bank in the form of guarantees in favour of the bank. Al-Dhameen guarantees 85% of the finance value not exceeding QR15 million). 

The Al-Dhameen programme was enhanced after feedback from partner banks and related parties, primarily to expand the base of beneficiaries, allow partner banks to determine which SMEs receive financing, and to fund them more flexibly. A record QR846 million in guarantees have been disbursed to over 348 SMEs since the beginning of the programme in 2010. 

The new QR100 million Al Dhameen portfolio aims to speed up approvals to guarantee the value of the funding provided by the partner bank to small and medium enterprises lacking sufficient guarantees. QDB has prepared a special portfolio guide that describes the terms, conditions, and international standards, due diligence, credit monitoring, applications and guidelines development, to help QIB to take the necessary decisions without referring to QDB.

Abdulaziz Bin Nasser Al-Khalifa, CEO of QDB said: "The Al Dhameen programme primarily facilitates financing to some of the most important sectors of industry, such as education, healthcare, and value-added services. The programme targets mainly companies and startups. We are delighted with this partnership with QIB, which (reinforces the priority) that all banks operating in Qatar have to support and develop the SME sector, diversifying the private sector and building a knowledge-based economy.” 

Bassel Gamal, QIB Group Chief Executive Officer said: “This agreement underscores QIB’s commitment towards supporting the country’s economy, by enhancing the role of the private sector and contributing to a suitable economic diversification as part of the Qatar National Vision 2030. It enables our existing and potential customers to get what they need swiftly and seamlessly, thus supporting the establishment of new SMEs and helping operating companies with their business expansion plans.

“We are proud of our strong ties with QDB, and we are committed to further enhance the mutual cooperation to achieve the agreement’s objectives which will contribute significantly in speeding up the process to provide financing solutions for SMEs. Supporting the SME sector is one of our top priorities, and for that reason, we have a dedicated programme, Aamaly, designed to cater for all the financial needs of SMEs in Qatar.”

Commercial Bank and Doha Bank are also partner banks for Al-Dhameen, having signed agreements with QDB in July 2015.

Interested?

SMEs can enquire about applications at the nearest QIB branch.

QIB-Qatar Airways VISA Signature credit card raises bar on premium services

Source: QIB.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has launched a Premium QIB-Qatar Airways VISA Signature credit card that enhances the QIB and Qatar Airways range of co-branded cards with a new range of benefits.

Designed with premium customers in mind, the QIB-Qatar Airways Signature credit card offers global concierge services, global airport lounge access, discounts and offers on luxury hotels, and full multi-trip travel insurance.

The VISA Signature co-branded card will enable customers to earn one Qmile for every QR6 spent on purchases made at a point of sale by either the customer or their supplementary card member. These Qmiles can be then used for redemptions including complimentary flights, upgrades and excess baggage on Qatar Airways’ flights, together with purchases made at Qatar Duty Free located at Hamad International Airport in Doha or the Oryx Galleria boutique in Doha, Qatar. Qmiles can also be redeemed for complimentary flights with oneworld airline partners.

The card will also provide multilingual concierge services with a 24-hour personal assistant who can arrange dinner reservations, chauffeur and taxi services, tickets, gifts or anything required in order to enhance the travel experience. The ‘LoungeKey’ Service, on both primary and supplementary cards, offers unlimited complimentary access to over 500 airport lounges worldwide.

All card holders will enjoy discounts on hotel rates, car rentals, exclusive restaurants, jewellery stores, theme parks, educational centres, holiday packages and a wide range of leading outlets around the world, including with the over 900 hotels listed in the Visa Luxury Hotel Collection.

The QIB-Qatar Airways Visa Signature Credit Card also enjoys automatic purchase protection covering all purchases made with the card. The protection includes loss, theft or damage of purchased items. Card holders will enjoy multi-trip travel insurance for themselves and their families, covering personal accidents, medical and travel inconvenience benefits. The card also comes with peace of mind on purchased items by almost doubling the manufacturer’s or retailer’s warranty on all items bought using the VISA Signature card. In addition, customers can withdraw cash of up to 100% of their credit limit as well as having the benefit of higher transaction limits.

As with all of QIB's credit and debit cards, online security is a major concern of the Bank. To counteract the risk of fraud, QIB has, over the past year, introduced a number of measures such as the use of one time passwords (OTP) that are valid for only one log-in or transaction; a move away from using the magnetic strip on the reverse side of the cards, in favour of chip-based processing; and the use of '3D Secure Technology', which has a password-protected authentication system designed to confirm the identity of the cardholder when a Visa Card is used online.

D. Anand, General Manager of the Personal Banking Group, pointed out that the launch of the VISA Signature Card specifically targets premium frequent travellers who can enjoy all travel benefits the Card has to offer, and will get to be part of Qatar Airways Loyalty Programme – Privilege Club. 

“We have witnessed that our customers’ spending habits require different payment solutions and this shari’ah compliant credit card offers a range of special privileges together with modern day convenience. Aimed at our affluent customers, we are proud to introduce the Visa Signature Co-branded credit card category, providing our clients with unique products and services, aiming as always to surpass their expectations,” he said.

“Further, the introduction of a new tier of QIB–Qatar Airways co-branded cards is a great testament to our successful partnership with one of the world’s five-star airlines.”`

Qatar Islamic Bank to beef up security with NCR

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), the first Islamic financial institution in Qatar, and NCR, a consumer transaction technologies provider, have signed an agreement under which QIB will purchase the NCR Skimming Protection Solution (SPS) in an effort to proactively address today’s ATM skimming challenges and deliver maximum protection and convenience to its customers. 

As part of this project, QIB will enhance the strength of its IT infrastructure with the use of security firewalls and network access control, as well as refresh its data centre switches and its entire telephony system.

QIB has already implemented Solidcore Suite for APTRA, an ATM white-listing software that proactively protects ATMs from insider attacks by preventing the introduction of unauthorised code on the network and maintaining its integrity and availability.

“Our agreement with NCR will deliver the latest software and hardware technology to help protect QIB banking platforms so we can sharpen our focus on productivity and protect our clients' data – a key pillar of our business strategy and a continuous improvement we have in plan,” said Ghazi Qarout, Qatar Islamic Bank's Chief Information Officer. 

“NCR brings a unique vision for transforming our IT Infrastructure and ATM channel through software platforms, consulting and hardware enablement, helping us speed our innovation, improve our customer experience and build on a roadmap deemed for success.”

With this new project, QIB will be among the first large financial institutions to move their self-service network to the Microsoft Windows 7 platform, which when combined with the Solidcore solution can result in superior security, putting QIB in an advantageous position to offer great experiences to its customers.  

QIB has also introduced new security measures for Internet and mobile banking in line with a directive from the Qatar Central Bank. QIB customers must now use “One-Time-Password” (OTP)* authentication to further secure online banking.
Customers can receive OTP codes in two ways: using a smartphone application called “QIB Aman” or via SMS.

*OTP is a password that is valid for only one log-in or transaction. As it is only effective for a short period of time and is no longer accepted thereafter, it is considered an effective method of combating software which attempts to fraudulently capture a customer’s log-in information.