Thursday, 11 October 2018

Banks shrug off impact of #Qatar blockade | Financial Times

Banks shrug off impact of Qatar blockade | Financial Times:

Compared with how things might have been, this has been a good year for Qatari banks. The ructions of the past year may even have left the country’s economy and, as a result, its banking sector, in better shape than before.

The Saudi-led blockade imposed on Qatar in June 2017 resulted in what could have been a catastrophic withdrawal of foreign deposits from Qatari banks. According to the central bank, non-resident deposits at commercial banks fell by 47bn riyals ($13bn) from May 2017 to the end of the year, taking their share of all deposits from 24 per cent to less than 17 per cent. A withdrawal of foreign interbank funding brought the total hit to the banking system in six months after the blockade to about $30bn, according to Fitch Ratings.

Analysts say deposits from the blockading countries — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt — were withdrawn in their entirety while depositors from other countries demanded higher interest rates.

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