• QNB Q4 profit up 11%
• Full-year profit $4.6bn
• Losses from bad loans down

Qatar National Bank, the Middle East and Africa’s largest lender by assets, reported a 11 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit on Monday as net interest and fee income increased.

QNB, which is 50 percent owned by Qatar’s government, dominates the country’s banking sector and has sizeable operations in Egypt and Turkey.

It made a fourth-quarter net profit of QAR4 billion ($1.1 billion), up from QAR3.6 billion in the prior-year period according to AGBI calculations.

Quarterly net interest income rose 7 percent to $2.4 billion while fee and commission income grew 22 percent to $330 million.

The bank’s 2024 full-year net profit rose 8 percent year on year to a record $4.6 billion.

Over the same period, its loan book expanded 7 percent to $250.2 billion and its deposits grew 3.5 percent to $243.7 billion.

QNB’s net interest margin, an important metric for banks, rose 5 basis points in 2024 to 2.65 percent, its highest level since at least 2020.

Annual losses from bad loans totalled $2.3 billion, down from $2.4 billion in 2023, although such losses increased 11 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024 versus the same period of 2023 according to AGBI calculations.