Qatar Financial Investment Question

stevnima
By stevnima

My question is to anyone that has tried to deal with the Qatar Banking system to get what in the U.S we call a Certificate of Deposit. What that is if you are unfamiliar, is when you put money into an account for duration of time usually 6 months to 12 months and receive compounded interest on a monthly basis. I am trying to find this here in Qatar.
So far I have found a few options but do not seem to me as an excellent rate of return. HSBC has a fixed length deposit account where you can put money in for 1, 3, 6, and 12 months and then at the end have a rate of return based on the duration and interest rate for the currency. An example is if you open a account for 50,000 QR then you would receive 4.5%, however that 4.5% is only paid at the end so you basically end up with around 2500 QR in interest. The interest is not compounded monthly and your account does not gradually get bigger the longer it is in the account for the duration of the 12 months.
Now they do have deposit times of 1 month. When I called to inquire about the interest rates I was told that it would be 1.576 percent annually. So that to me says divide that by 12 and that is actually what I would receive on my one month deposit, which equates to about .0013. At first I figured well if it compounded at the 1.567% then perhaps I could keep rolling it over and end up at the 12 month mark and have a little bit extra, this was not the case.
So next I called Mashreq bank which is in Dubai to ask them about their Mashreq Investment Certificate however the girl transferred me within the bank to the Investment section and they then told me they do not deal with those types, only stocks and bonds. At that point I was getting upset so I hung up. Why transfer me there and then only tell me they can’t answer a question that I have calling a number on their own website.
Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone had any experience here in Qatar trying to make their money work to their advantage rather than just a standard bank account.
Thanks

By stevnima• 17 Dec 2008 20:34
stevnima

It's not just the interest rates in the US its also the stock market and pretty much all investments are feeling the pain. I personally know of people that have lost $50,000 due to all the economic problems. That is primarily why I want to find something that is virtually risk free and CD's seem to be the way to go.

Thanks for the info, I will check out QNB and see if it fits in with what I want to accomplish. 2.75% is not much but if it is variable as the economy picks up so will the percentage points.

By anonymous• 17 Dec 2008 13:14
Rating: 5/5
anonymous

The monetary policy in Qatar is broadly pegged to US monetary policy.

If you haven't already noticed, interest rates in US have folled to their lowest level. Ever. 0.25%.

I know that at QNB you can open an account such as the one you are referring to above, with the 12 month option paying 2.75%, compounding monthly.

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