Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Thani bin Abdullah Al Thani, (third left) Chairman and Managing Director of QIIB, with Sheikh Abdullah bin Thani Al Thani (second left) Vice-Chairman of QIIB, and other Board Members during the Extraordinary General Assembly meeting i
Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB), one of the country’s leading Shariah-complaint banking services providers, is expected to begin its operations in Morocco by the first quarter of 2017, according to a senior official of the Bank.
“Things are moving smoothly in the right direction. Currently we do not have any investment plans in overseas except Morocco, and we are focusing fully on the Morocco project, which is expected to start by early next year,” Jamal Abdullah Al Jamal, Deputy CEO of QIIB told The Peninsula yesterday on the sidelines of the Bank’s Extraordinary General Assembly Meeting (EGM). However, Jamal said that the project is still subject to needful approvals from the concerned local authorities, including the central bank of Morocco, the banking sector regulator.
QIIB in December last year had signed an agreement with Moroccan lender Credit Immobilier et Hotelier S.A. (CIH Bank) to set up a bank in Morocco, which is developing its Islamic finance sector.Jamal also said that QIIB is taking a 40 percent stake in the new bank, which is set to begin operations very soon after receiving the necessary approvals. However, he did not provide further detail about the venture and the size of the capital.
Meanwhile, the shareholders of the QIIB earlier yesterday approved both the agenda of the EGM which included an amendment in the Article 7 with regard to the ownership ceiling limit. Under the amended article shares of QIIB shall be nominal and each share is indivisible in the face of the company. If a share is held by multiple persons, these persons have to choose someone to represent them in the use of the rights related to the share and these persons shall be jointly responsible for the liabilities arising from the ownership of the share.
It also stipulates that nor in any way shall be conditions that exceed the ownership of any natural or legal person and, directly or indirectly, 5 percent of the company's shares.
The EGM also authorised the QIIB Chairman/Managing Director to sign the new Articles of Association after the new amendments and to complete all the procedures to publicise the new amendments.
