Qatar exchange houses’ foreign currency purchase, sale moderates in 2020: QCB

Qatar exchange houses’ foreign currency purchase, sale moderates in 2020: QCB

Purchase and sale of foreign currencies by Qatar’s exchange houses further moderated during 2020, Qatar Central Bank said and noted the “decline in remittances” contributed to the moderation in sales and purchases of foreign currencies last year.

“In view of the balance between sales and purchase, the demand of foreign currencies of the exchange houses from the banks is expected to remain low. This is reflected in the low level of dues of exchange houses to the banks,” QCB said in its latest Financial Stability Review.

In Qatar, outgoing remittances through exchange houses in Qatar dipped in 2020 under the twin impact of pandemic and fall in oil prices combined with increased spending within the domestic economy.

As in the previous year, the decline was spread across all major regions. The share of funds to Asia continued to dominate and increased during the year.

Remittances to the top five countries also moderated but relatively slowly as compared to other countries resulting in modest increase in their share.

Under the current circumstances and due to customers shift to use e-banking services through smart phone applications and websites, and in view of the noticeable increase of piracy and cyber fraud attempts, exchange houses were