With more than three-quarters of Qatar’s population come from overseas, Doha Bank is focusing on expatriate customers, says Parveen Bansal.
With energy needs expanding worldwide and oil prices remaining high, the Qatari economy is booming. Under the prudent leadership of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani, the state’s development strategy is focusing on diversification of the economy away from oil, toward extensive gas reserves and industrial expansion. Oil and natural gas revenues enable Qatar to have a per capita income not far below the leading industrial countries in western Europe.

How should banks meet the challenge of growing competition from retailers for financial services? And where should their technology priorities lie? Bill Hartnett, financial services manager at Microsoft, gives Parveen Bansal some pointers.
Software giant Microsoft is well known not only in the consumer world, but it has also made serious inroads into the financial services sector, where it commands the majority market share in the server and desktop computer operating systems areas.

When disaster strikes, banks must get back into operation as fast as possible. That is where business continuity planning comes in, says Wendy Atkins.

The battle against money laundering and fraud is being fought on various fronts with various weapons, the most popular of which appears to be biometrics. But will this contactless form of payment eventually lead to a cashless society? Chris Skinner ponders the future.

TowerGroup estimates that total IT spending in the global financial services industry will rise 4% from nearly $334bn in 2003 to just over $347bn in 2004. Continuing this growth pattern, total IT spending will increase to $379.2bn by 2006, at a compound annual rate of 4.5% from 2004. Banking customers, both corporate and individual, demand superior service and are taking note of their institutions’ performance gaps vis-à-vis other service industries. Innovation will shift dramatically from the traditional, vertically focused dimension of banking products to a horizontal integration of new service breakthroughs by virtue of a federation of alliances and partnerships. Bank business strategy will shift from short-term cost cutting mandates to long-term value and revenue growth.