Commercial Bank Finance Services (CBFS) is one of the top three licensed brokerage houses in Qatar, regulated by the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA). Established in 2011, CBFS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Commercial Bank with paid-up capital of QAR 700 million. Our business mission is to become a “Brokerage House of Choice” for our domestic and international clients by offering them first to market and best in class products and services leveraging digital technology to help them meet their financial goals.
CBFS provides customers with secure platforms to trade on Qatar Stock Exchange-listed stocks, bonds and Treasury bills. Customers can trade directly through our numerous channels during the trading hours i.e. online and mobile trading applications from anywhere during market trading hours. Clients can also call directly at our dealing room phone lines to place their trades. CBFS also provides periodic local and global market economy and company research for clients to help them make informed investment decisions.
International Finance Magazine spoke to Subah Al-Kuwari, Marketing / Sales Support Officer | CBFS, where he discussed how CBFS provides the best customer service, how Qatar has become one of the most attractive markets globally, the impact of Covid on the business and the long-term plan of the company.
Providing best in class experience at every client touchpoint
CBFS long term strategy remains centred around clients and we continue to invest in our product and service offerings that are relevant and provide them with best in class experience at every client touchpoint. Covid-19 has fundamentally shifted the way we interact with our clients with more and more financial transactions executed through mobile, online and other self-serve channels. Our goal is to enable clients to execute 100 percent of their transactions from anywhere using our best in class self serve platforms.
Almost half of our trade transactions now are coming from mobile and online channels which are up almost 10-12 times over 2019. Covid-19 has reaffirmed the investments we have made in technology platforms, products and people as part of our strategic plan, as it has given us a greater degree of resilience and the ability to adapt quickly to capture the changes in customer behaviours that have been accelerated by the pandemic.
As a market leader in innovation, we excel in bringing the best practices, new technology and new products that are relevant to clients’ changing needs. Last year, we introduced Margin Trading Product, which is the first pure margin product in the country that allows clients the flexibility to take advantage of market opportunities, at the same time offering flexibility for clients to hold long term positions for potential capital appreciation and earning attractive dividend yields. Another market-leading innovation was to offer clients a fully digitised onboarding experience that reduced account opening time from an average of 5-6 days to within one hour and led to substantial enhancement in client experience and delight. Several other new products are in the pipeline for next year including Liquidity Provisioning, Market Making, Investment Advisory etc.
Making trading attractive for the younger generations
We aim to expand our services to the younger domestic client base by offering the best in class technology-driven products and services. We are tailoring special packages for this promising but under-served segment. By doing so, CBFS will become the first brokerage house in Qatar to take this step forward towards engaging the youth of this country in financial services offerings. This year we launched our “Award Winning” Trading Mobile Application which will help equip the young audience with the tools necessary to achieve a bright, successful financial education with simple & easy navigation tools and the latest market research.
During the peak of the pandemic, when the whole country was under lockdown, we at CBFS were resilient and none of our services was affected due to a robust Business Continuity Framework that we had put in place.
All our efforts and focus is geared towards creating a market-leading franchise that offers the best brokerage services for our domestic and international clients. In the end, industry profitability level will be supported by the growing retail share; increase in margin funding interest income, and distribution of financial products despite the pricing pressure and contracting yields. Entities with established information technology (IT) infrastructure, enhanced product suites, strong balance and controls will fare better driving economies of scale and ROI while delivering top of the line experience to clients.