DOHA: International Islamic has been selected the "Best Straight Through Processing Bank in Qatar" by Wachovia Bank, part of the US-based Wells Fargo & Company for its excellence in formatting of payments in 2008.
This is the fourth time that International Islamic has won the prestigious award. Wells & Fargo is one of the largest diversified financial services company in the world providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance.
Announcing the award, Wachovia Bank Vice-President and Regional Manager Chafic Haddad said: "International Islamic has been recognised for its excellence in formatting payments in 2008. We have correspondent banking relationship with all banks in Qatar. But we have found International Islamic's formatting of payments the best in Qatar."
Haddad said proper formatting of payments was important because it ensured the payments went directly without any intervention from Wachovia.
"If the payment is incorrectly formatted, we have to stop and repair it before we can send the payment to the beneficiary concerned. The result is a delay in receiving payments at the beneficiary side. It is quite important that the payments are correctly piped into the Swift message format.
"Specifically, it is for this reason we are recognising International Islamic," Haddad said.
Explaining the selection procedure, Haddad said all Qatari banks with which Wachovia had correspondent banking relationship, were measured on a percentage basis.
"In 2008 we looked at the hundreds of payments that were sent to us by these banks. We then classified the payments that were correctly formatted and had gone through the Straight Through Processing (STP). On this scale, International Islamic has had the highest percentage among Qatari banks," he said.
Receiving the award, International Islamic Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Mohsen Moustafa said he was particularly happy to receive the STP Swift performance award.
"At International Islamic, we give top priority to properly training our staff and equipping our systems in line with STP Swift requirements. Our team deserves praise for its performance in this area," Moustafa added.
International Islamic first manager (Operational Risk), Asim Mahmood, manager (Central Operations), Ahmad Ballan and Wachovia global sales manager Asish Sharma were also present during the award presentation.
© The Peninsula 2009
