Category Archives: Qatar

Guide to the 2022 World Cup in Doha

Getting There: Depends on where you are flying from. For us, coming from Atlanta, USA, it was Delta through Paris. There was an Air France through Paris, which ended up being a headache for our friends, as they had to check their bags (again) in Paris, and almost missed their flight.

We stayed in Abu Dhabi and drove to Doha through Saudi Arabia for the first couple of World Cup matches. But what was supposed to be 4 hours by road, took us 7 to 8 hours, because of the 7 Saudi checkpoints we had to go through.

Using Fly Dubai to Doha was a better way to go, but too bad we did not discover it sooner. There were flights every other hour daily.

Staying in Touch: On arrival, all visitors with digital Hayya cards (visas) were given a free SIM card for the duration of their stay. This allowed us to stay connected while in Qatar and browse the internet

Where to Stay: A hotel like the Hampton by Hilton in Doha runs about $600 a night. This was obviously due to the world cup, an event that’s irreversibly transformed so many towns and cities around the country, but hotels were scarce, which in turn drove the prices up. So we stayed in Doha for only a couple of nights but opted for Abu Dhabi (which celebrated 51 years in 2022), that offered more options and whose prices were much more reasonable.

Getting Around: Doha, is smaller than Abu Dhabi, and there were easily accessible means of public transport such as taxis, Uber, Lyft, and buses. The Metro was the most convenient way to get around the city. During the World Cup, the metro and buses were free of charge. English was the language outside of Arabic that was the most spoken.

What to Eat: You have a diversity of meal choices from around the world. Apart from Qatari, there were Middle Eastern, Asian, and other international cuisines. In terms of politics that they talk about, the Palestinian Cause was front and centre. Several news outlets tried to get our views on the matter.

Shopping & Sight-Seeing: The main activities to see were the World Cup events in Doha. Souq Al Waqif is where the fans congregated, ate, sang, shopped, and danced in the colours of their countries.

During the World Cup, the FIFA Fan zones are both wonderful places to bond with other fans. There were also some concerts and DJs played some fun music after the games and we danced our behinds off.

It was nice to see soccer stadiums and how unique they all were, especially the one that is made of shipping containers. Surprisingly no one talked about the organization in terms of being forward-thinking and environmentally conscious in that Qatar will only keep 3 of these stadiums, and recycle or donate some to other countries.

You can also explore downtown Doha, the beach, the Souk (market), or the Museum. You can through a day by spending between the equivalent of $20 in Qatari Dirham to thousands of dollars if shopping is involved.

Biggest surprise about the country: 50 years ago, this country was a desert and looking around, and seeing how much they were able to build in such a brief period is mind-boggling. The other thing that absolutely surprised me is how graceful the Qataris were after the loss to Senegal, almost everyone we came across was congratulatory and asked to take pictures with us.

Qataris, in my opinion, are the friendliest people I have come across. The place was very secure, and I did not see armed soldiers patrolling the city. They were proud of their sociability and seemed to intentionally strive to make soccer fans experience the best World Cup – and they succeeded! – and this suggests that the trend to avoid serving alcohol during the tournament may become entrenched in future.

Read More: The economics of hosting a World Cup and the decision that led FIFA members to award the 2026 tournament to USA/Canada/Mexico over Morocco.

A guest post by a fan of the Lions of Teranga

Bankers Predict the 2022 World Cup

The World Cup starts on November 20, in Qatar with the hosts playing Ecuador. A few bankers, economists and financial minds and machines have made predictions about the winners ahead of the month-long tournament that features 32 nations, with Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia representing Africa. 

Who will win?

  • BCA Research has the most comprehensive report of match picks, research methodology, group rankings, and past history, with insights that will be useful for gamblers e.g. “Teams with more players from the same club tend to perform better in the knockout stages.” They conclude that “on December 18, 2022, the world will watch a final between Argentina and Portugal” and the dream final between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will be won by Argentina in a final match that has a high likelihood of being decided by a penalty shootout. 
  • Sports data producer OPTA, has used artificial intelligence that predicts Brazil will win the World Cup. (read more)
  • Lloyds Insurance picks England to win the World Cup over Brazil. Others which come close in their model, which also lists group and knock-out match winners, are France, Argentina and Spain. Senegal will make the round of 16 but lose to England.
  • Liberum predicts an Argentina win by defeating England.

Mixed Picks

  • From the UBS Athletes and Entertainers (A&E) strategic client segment, one analyst picks Argentina, over Brazil, and another picked England to win.
  • Saxo Bank predicts Brazil is ahead of Argentina (24% to 22%) in one model, and in another, the Netherlands (22%) is a clear winner. 

Other:

S&P ranks top banks in MEA (Middle East & Africa)

Qatar National Bank (QNB) with $229 billion of assets is the largest bank in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) zone according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. It is followed by First Abu Dhabi with  $182 billion and then the top African bank, which is the Standard Bank of South Africa (Stanbic) with $164 billion of assets. Fourth and fifth are banks from Israel which S&P notes rose on the list due to the appreciation of the country’s Shekel currency versus the US dollar.

S&P MEA top bank origins

South Africa has the most African banks on the list with First Rand (ranked 8), Barclays Africa with $94 billion of assets and which is rebranding to Absa is ninth, while Nedbank and Investec are in 13th and 27th place respectively on the S&P list.

Other African banks are the National Bank of Egypt (14)  and Attijariwafa of Morocco (23 ). QNB, which has been publishing quarterly results in Kenyan newspapers alongside other commercial banks, is also the second largest shareholder of Ecobank of Togo, but there are no Nigeria banks or any Sub-Saharan ones from the East or West blocks of the continent on the MEA list. Kenya’s largest bank group – KCB has about $6.5 billion of assets.

QNB and the banks on the MEA list are ranked according to IFRS accounting principles but certain banks use local accounting measures e.g Israeli GAAP, Eqyptian GAAP and Qatari GAAP.

The MEA banks are a sub-set of S&P’s list ranking the largest banks in the world. The list was topped by four banks from China, led by the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China with $4 trillion of assets, followed by China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and the Bank of China. There is more diversity after that with Mitsubishi UFJ of Japan in 5th place with $2.8 trillion of assets, followed by  JPMorgan Chase (USA), the UK’s HSBC and in 8th place is BNP Paribas of France with $2.3 trillion of assets. Eighteen of the top 100 banks are from China, with $24 trillion of assets, the US had eleven banks and Japan has eight banks, but none from the MEA.

Qatar Bank Sanctions

Yesterday Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt led a handful of other countries including Bahrain, Yemen in severing diplomatic relations with Qatar – and these have now extended to some Qatar Bank sanctions.

  • The three Gulf states gave Qatari visitors and residents two weeks to leave their countries. 
  • Saudi also closed the border and halted air and sea traffic with Qatar, urging “all brotherly countries and companies to do the same”
  • Bahrain’s withdrew its diplomatic mission from the Qatari capital, Doha, within 48 hours 
  • The UAE  ordered Qatari citizens to leave the country within 14 days and banned its citizens from traveling to Qatar.
  • Egypt also announced the closure of its airspace and seaports for all Qatari transportation “to protect its national security”.
  • UAE-based carriers Emirates, Etihad Airways, and FlyDubai said they would suspend flights to and from Qatar beginning Tuesday morning.

Qatar Airways which flies to over 150 destinations was barred from flying over UAE and Saudi Arabia. They have complied, which now leads to some interesting flight radar maps.

Continuing the  onslaught which was apparently green-lit by US President Trump, financial sanctions were now announced today targeting Qatar banks and finance including:

  • Banks in Saudi Arabia, UAE & Bahrain HAVE suspended transactions to banks in Qatar, citing instructions by central banks.
  • Saudi Central Bank told banks not to trade in #Qatari Riyals in addition to foreign exchanges
  • U.A.E. banks not  providing leverage on Qatar bonds
  • Qatari riyal under pressure as Saudi, UAE banks delayed Qatar deals.
  • UAE and Bahraini central banks had asked banks they supervise to report their exposure to Qatari banks
  •  Some Sri Lankan banks stopped buying Qatari riyals, saying counterpart banks in Singapore had advised them not to accept the currency.
  • Commercial banks say that they stopped accepting Qatar Riyal as they have no way of repatriating and clearing them

Other

Older pre-sanction report 

  • Qatari banks have been borrowing abroad to fund their activities. Their foreign liabilities ballooned to 451 billion riyals ($124 billion) in March from 310 billion riyals at the end of 2015, central bank data shows.
  • So any extended disruption to their ties with foreign banks could be awkward, though the government of the world’s biggest exporter has massive financial reserves which it could use to support them. Banks from the United Arab Emirates, Europe and elsewhere have been lending to Qatari institutions.
  • Because of its financial reserves and as long as it can continue exporting liquefied natural gas, Qatar looks likely to avoid any crippling economic crisis. But credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service said on Monday that if trade and capital flows were disrupted, the diplomatic dispute could eventually hurt the outlook for Qatar’s debt.

Bank Mergers & Musical Chairs in 2016 – Part II

Following part I Stanbic

Stanbic: Eight years after the merger between Stanbic and CFC banks, which created CFC Stanbic, Stanbic has rebranded and removed the “CFC” name completely from the bank. The 2008 merger created the number 4 bank in Kenya, and today it is about number 7 in assets with 25 branches and listed on the Nairobi shares exchange. The Stanbic brand will now be common in the 20 countries across Africa.

Bank M (of Tanzania) published a statement, denying they are the majority owners of the former Oriental Commercial Bank in Kenya – now known as M Oriental since June 2016. It states that MHL is a Kenyan entity that is promoted by some shareholders of Bank M, but that it does not have direct ownership.

QNB: Qatar National Bank continues to run quarterly newspaper ads on its size in Kenya without being linked to any Kenyan bank. Today’s newspaper which touts them as the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa region, with September 2016 assets of $196 billion (up 37%) and profits of $2.7 billion (up 11%).