Business & Money | Sunday 2 October, 2016 12:56 am |

Doha Bank, one of the largest private commercial bank in Qatar, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Qatar Finance Business Academy (QFBA), Qatar’s national leader and partner of choice for professional finance and business training, to develop an education and competency framework under which QFBA will offer specialized training courses to Doha Bank employees.

The agreement makes Doha Bank the first bank in Qatar to sign up for the implementation of Kafa’a - a first-of-its-kind training and competency framework introduced by QFBA for the banking and finance sector in the GCC region - to develop the skills of its employees. Launched in October 2015 with a goal to raise competency levels across the financial services sector, Kafa’a aims to standardize a stringent set of world-class competency development benchmarks and targeted training programs to achieve best practices and address industry needs.

Under the terms of the agreement, QFBA will offer a comprehensive range of training courses to pre-identified Doha Bank staff teams in addition to designing and implementing specialized Career Development Labs aimed at developing the leadership, techno-functional and behavioral competencies of Doha Bank employees.

The move will provide Doha Bank with substantial benefits, such as employee competencies that are aligned to the Bank’s future strategy, a sustainable and highly flexible career development platform that can be adapted for the entire talent lifecycle, and comprehensive talent intelligence reports that identify strengths and gaps in organizational capability. It will also help the Bank better plan and implement organizational change and transition planning.

Dr. R. Seetharaman, CEO of Doha Bank, said, “The MoU with QFBA is a milestone step in Doha Bank’s quest for continuous improvement. Kafa’a provides a platform to enhance competency standards in the financial services sector and support Qatar’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy, and we are immensely proud that we are the first bank in Qatar to sign an agreement towards implementation of this landmark program. Making Kafa’a’s specialized training courses available to our employees will allow us to establish and maintain global standards at all levels of the organization and build a robust, high-quality talent pool that will support our long-term strategic aspirations.”

Following up on Dr. Seetharaman’s remarks, Dr. Abdulaziz Al Horr, CEO of QFBA, said:

“Through our MoU with Doha Bank, QFBA is taking a leap forward bringing kafa’a’s holistic, integrated system of professional and competency standard to Qatar’s banking industry. Kafa’a framework will effectively contribute to the achievement of Doha Brank’s future growth plans and maintain its competitive edge. This initiative by Doha bank also fast-track employee career development by assessing their skills and competency level against world-class standards and training them to adopt these best practices. The added benefit will be contribution to the employees’ personal growth development plan and play a significant role in elevating human capital of Qatar’s financial services sector.