The Qatar Central Bank's Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) settled 0.65mn large value electronic transactions worth QR1.88tn on a gross basis in 2023, according to the central bank.

In addition, RTGS settled batches of net interbank obligations arising from other payment systems and large value cheques on a gross basis, the QCB said in its latest Financial Stability Review.

According to the QCB, 49% of cheques processed during the year was high-value (QR1mn and above).

The usage of electronic payment methods in Qatar has increased significantly in recent years.

The number of transactions processed in various payment and settlement systems operated by the QCB stood at 241.7mn in 2023 as compared to 205.6mn processed in 2022, registering an annual growth of 17.6%.

Although the QCB manages a number of payment systems, RTGS and NAPS continued to remain the most systemically important, with RTGS handling 77.6% of the total customer and interbank payments in value terms and NAPS handling more than 90.9% of the payments in terms of volume.

As part of the central bank market operations, the value and volume of QMR deposits remained much higher than those of QMR loans, indicating that the banking system had adequate liquidity during the year.

Despite introducing several electronic payment methods, cheques traditionally remained one of the preferred payment modes in Qatar for a large segment of the population mainly because cheques are considered as a sort of guarantee on future payments.

Nevertheless, cheques processed in the Electronic Cheque Clearing System (ECC) recorded an annual decrease of 10.8% in value terms while it declined by 2.4% in volume.

The reduction in the volume of cheques reflected digital transformation brought about by prevalence of retail payment systems as against traditional cheque clearing system further supporting the QCB’s strategic approach to minimise dependency on checks in the payment ecosystem.

National ATM and Point of Sale System (NAPS) connects all automated teller machines (ATMs), point-of-sale (POS) terminals, and National E-commerce Gateway offered by the local banks to a central payment switch that in turn re-routes the local debit card and Himyan card transactions between the acquirers and the card issuers and settles the transactions on participant account within the QCB.

In addition, the system supports routing and settling of GCC and Egypt interbank debit card transactions.

In 2023, the transactions settled through NAPS registered an annual growth of 17% in volume and 1.4% in value as compared to 2022.

ATM transactions in terms of value declined by 3.1% reflecting the preference of electronic transactions over cash transactions.

An annual increase in POS transactions and QPay transactions of 8.4% and 4.4%, respectively indicated the growing adoption of cashless payments and online payments, the QCB said.