Best Islamic bank: Dukhan Bank
Dukhan Bank’s success is built on its ability to combine consistent financial growth with investment in digital innovation, customer experience and sophisticated Shariah-compliant banking solutions.
The bank delivered another record year in 2025, with net profit increasing 5% to QAR1.41 billion, supported by a 6% rise in net banking income. Total assets reached a record QAR123.8 billion, while financing assets grew 4% year-on-year to QAR90 billion and customer deposits increased 5% to QAR87.8 billion.
Current and savings account balances rose 21%, reflecting the strength of the bank’s customer franchise. The bank also strengthened its balance-sheet resilience, improving its non-performing financing ratio and maintaining a capital adequacy ratio of 18.4%, comfortably above regulatory requirements.
Alongside this financial momentum, Dukhan Bank accelerated investment in digital capabilities to make Islamic banking more accessible. In 2025, it became the first bank in Qatar to launch a fully digital self-service onboarding kiosk and the first to integrate Qatar Digital Identity into its onboarding and verification processes. The bank has also introduced instant personal finance, fully digital salary advances, instant credit-card issuance and a mobile banking zakat calculator enabling direct payments to Qatar’s Ministry of Endowment and Islamic Affairs.
For affluent and private banking clients, Dukhan Bank continued to enhance its Shariah-compliant wealth proposition through premium cards, lifestyle benefits and investment capabilities, including a mobile brokerage portfolio dashboard.
Its digital transformation also extended to payments and infrastructure, with early adoption of Qatar’s instant-payment systems, enhanced digital security capabilities and a major core banking transformation programme initiated to deliver a unified customer platform.
With strong capitalisation, continued technology investment and a focus on service excellence, Dukhan Bank demonstrated how Islamic banking can combine financial resilience, digital transformation and customer-focused innovation.
Best Islamic alternative investment firm: Lesha Bank
Lesha Bank combined rapid expansion in assets under management (AUM) with diversification across aviation, private equity and real estate, strengthening its investment platform while broadening access to institutional-quality private market opportunities for investors in Qatar.
During 2025, the bank delivered strong, measurable growth, with AUM rising 54% year-on-year to QAR13.3 billion. This expansion was underpinned by a strategy focused on private markets, which continued to account for the majority of the bank’s AUM and drive portfolio resilience through diversified income streams.
A key strategic development was the bank’s expansion into aviation investments, including the launch of a dedicated subsidiary and the establishment of a presence in Dublin. Acquisitions of aircraft such as the Airbus A350-1000 and Boeing 787-9 provided exposure to long-term leasing income while aligning portfolios with more fuel-efficient technologies. This move broadened Lesha Bank’s offering beyond traditional sectors and enabled access to globally diversified, income-generating assets.
In private equity, the bank continued to expand its activity across infrastructure, energy and secondaries. Notable transactions included an indirect equity stake in Edinburgh Airport through an infrastructure-focused fund, and an indirect investment in a global energy and infrastructure platform specialising in equity stakes across the liquefied natural gas (LNG) value chain. The bank also seeded multiple private equity secondaries strategies, including a partnership with a globally leading secondary manager.
Alongside these efforts, the Real Estate Investment division significantly expanded its Qatar-focused programme. Multiple income-generating assets were acquired across key locations, including West Bay and The Pearl, reinforcing the bank’s domestic footprint while delivering stable yield-oriented opportunities.
Best Islamic digital bank: Dukhan Bank
Dukhan Bank distinguished itself as Qatar’s leading Islamic digital bank through the depth and execution of a transformation that upgraded how Shariah‑compliant banking is digitally delivered across retail, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and corporate segments in 2025. The bank combined strong financial performance with tangible, nationally significant digital firsts, embedding technology into customer journeys rather than treating digitisation as a peripheral channel.
A defining achievement was Dukhan Bank becoming the first bank in Qatar to launch a fully self‑service digital onboarding kiosk, allowing customers to open accounts, complete identity verification and receive debit cards without staff intervention. This was complemented by first‑in‑market integration with Qatar Digital Identity (QDI), enabling government‑grade verification that materially reduced onboarding friction while raising security standards.
Digital capability was reinforced across payments and cards. Dukhan Bank was among the earliest to go live on all Qatar Central Bank-mandated payment reforms, including Fawran instant payments, real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) integration and multi‑wallet functionality via Qatar Mobile Payment (QMP). Its Himyan debit and wallet ecosystem delivered broad digital wallet acceptance, while mobile‑based contactless payment solutions extended cashless acceptance to SMEs and micro‑merchants. These capabilities were embedded within a purpose‑built corporate and SME digital platform supporting transfers, payroll, utilities and multi‑entity management.
The bank’s digital leadership was underpinned by resilience and scale. In 2025, Dukhan Bank reported record net profit of QAR1.41 billion and a 6% growth in net banking income.
By aligning advanced digital delivery with full Shariah compliance and national infrastructure, Dukhan Bank delivered a transformation that was practical, inclusive and system‑level – earning its position as Qatar’s best Islamic digital bank.
Best sukuk deal: Citi Islamic Investment Bank
The State of Qatar $4 billion dual-tranche bond and sukuk
Citi Islamic Investment Bank acted as joint global coordinator for the State of Qatar’s $4 billion dual-tranche bond and sukuk issuance in November 2025. The sukuk accounted for $3 billion of this dual issuance and was issued with a 10-year tenor maturing in November 2035.
It marked the State of Qatar’s return to the international sukuk market after a 13-year hiatus, and was the issuer’s debut sukuk programme where the underlying sukuk structure was based on a combination of sale and leaseback and commodity murabaha.
Across the bond and sukuk tranches, the dual issuance reached a peak orderbook of more than $3.5 billion, representing an oversubscription of 3.4x. With a re-offer yield of 4.308%, the issuance achieved not only the tightest spread ever by the State of Qatar on a sukuk deal but also the tightest spread ever achieved globally on a 10-year sukuk tranche.
Citi structured the issuance with a double-special purpose vehicle (SPV) framework to meet the issuer’s requirements. The sukuk also complied with the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) Shariah standards and the latest industry requirements to be able to target the widest investor base.
The sukuk supported Qatar’s long-term diversification agenda under National Vision 2030 and the Third National Development Strategy (2024–2030), reinforcing sovereign market re-engagement beyond hydrocarbons.
