The Doha Bank Group, one of the largest commercial banks in the State of Qatar, in line with its international expansion strategy, will officially open a representative office in South Africa this week.

‘We have identified that South Africa is the gateway to the African continent, and establishing a presence in South Africa will provide Doha Bank with access to South African business opportunities and facilitate a greater understanding of the broader African market, so that we can then develop and strengthen our footprint across Africa,’ says CEO of Doha Bank Dr Seetharaman.

‘Further, we strongly believe that our commitment to supporting bilateral trade and business deals will be fulfilled only if there is a closer interaction on a personal level with the respective offices for transactions both outward and inward, from and to Qatar. The Doha Bank South Africa office will complement the services of our global network in our efforts to support and enhance the bilateral trade and customer services to customers who have dealings with Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and India, where we have full-fledged operations,’ says Dr Seetharaman.

The immediate operating strategy is one where Doha Bank hopes to attract the support of key South African banks to initially establish Nostro account relationships in Gulf Co-operation Council currencies and Indian rupees.

The Doha Bank Group has developed a long-term strategy where after gaining an understanding of the local market and, with the approval of the South African Reserve Bank, would like to covert the Representative Office into a full scale banking operation, which can fully support the customers in South Africa by offering its full range of products and services.

Incorporated in 1979, Doha Bank is the third-largest local conventional bank by assets in Qatar, with a market share of approximately 7.5% and assets totalling QR75.5bn. It has one of the largest international networks of the Qatari banks, through branches in UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi), Kuwait and India, with representative offices in the UK, Germany, Turkey, Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, UAE and Canada, with the 12th representative office being South Africa.

Dr Seetharaman will host a gala event for key stakeholders to commemorate the opening of the bank’s inaugural representative office on the African continent in Sandton, on 25 June 2015.

24 June 2015