Qatar Central Bank published a report on its 2025 institutional developments and financial-sector initiatives. It reduced key policy rates by a cumulative 75 basis points, with full and immediate transmission to the average overnight interbank rate, while the banking sector maintained capital and liquidity buffers well above regulatory thresholds. Official reserves rose to QAR 202.2 billion at year-end, with gold increasing to 28.9% of the portfolio from 7.9% at end-2021. Supervisory activity included 15 on-site reviews covering all eight Qatari national banks under a new risk-based methodology and 84 special inspections. The central bank’s real-time gross settlement system processed nearly 497,000 high-value transactions worth QAR 10.26 trillion and added local settlement and transfer services for U.S. dollar transactions. Licensed fintech firms increased to 14, while 10 regulations were issued under the FinTech Strategy and six firms entered regulatory sandbox programs. Under the Third Financial Sector Strategy, 111 of 283 projects were completed by the end of its third year, including projects among the 153 led by the central bank. Government bond and sukuk issuance totaled QAR 23.3 billion during 2025, taking outstanding instruments to QAR 121.4 billion at year-end.

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