Today, reputation is no longer one challenge among many; it has become ‘the’ challenge, especially in Gulf (GCC) banking. QNB’s continued success hinges on cultivating a distinctive reputation that maximizes stakeholder value. Apart from dozens of other insights, this was one of the key takeaways from a multi-year study analyzing the perceptions of over 3,000 C-suite executives and senior managers from Fortune Global 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies. The study examined the best wholesale banks in the Gulf region — those providing corporate, investment, and commercial (SME) banking services. QNB emerged as one of the most highly regarded wholesale banks in the GCC, topping the list of leading regional wholesale banks.

In today’s increasingly competitive Gulf banking landscape, the ultimate goal is to build a reputation that is hard to imitate, distinguishing a bank from its peers in the eyes of clients and other stakeholders, including potential employees. A bank’s corporate reputation should be anchored in six factors:

1. An excellent client strategy that fuels both client satisfaction and loyalty while adopting a ‘client-driving’ approach rather than a ‘client-driven’ one, focusing on proactively shaping client needs, priorities, and expectations.

2. An external engagement strategy that prioritizes ongoing, mutually beneficial, and superior interactions with all key stakeholders — from clients to communities.

3. A competitive edge that enhances the bank’s distinctiveness in essential business dimensions compared to local peers (in this case, Saudi National Bank, National Bank of Kuwait, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Emirates NBD, Al Rajhi Bank, KFH, and so forth) and global rivals (e.g., non-Gulf banks and financial conglomerates like UBS, J.P. Morgan, MUFG, Deutsche Bank, etc.) — resulting in uniqueness, first and foremost, in the eyes of business clients.

4. A talent and leadership development strategy that promotes empowerment, fosters a collaborative mindset within the bank and builds a smooth-running ‘leadership-followership’ engine.

5. An innovative climate within the bank that encourages the development — systematically — of new products and services, strengthening relationships with business clients.

6. A business model designed to enhance the bank’s [1] client responsiveness, [2] organizational agility and resilience, [3] clarity and transparency of product/service offerings, [4] reliability, consistency, and predictability as a business partner, and [5] alignment with evolving market dynamics (e.g., geopolitical, regulatory, and many other impactful changes).

By focusing on these six factors, banks can improve and revitalize key aspects of their management, thereby securing their standing as premier wholesale banks. In today’s Gulf banking arena, reputation isn’t just one facet of the game — it ‘is’ the game. For more details, please visit www.pieterklaasjagersma.com/reports/qnb.