On the face of it they offer an attractive package including online banking, good interest rates on deposits and a Credit card after 3 months.

Unfortunately they did not live up to expectations. The ATM card they issued did not work outside Qatar despite repeated assurance that it was working – every time I went to their branch I ended up waiting for an hour before being able to see anyone and then didn’t get any practical assistance. I never got a Credit card from them either.

Eventually I requested an ATM card with my name on it rather than a default name – its hard getting retailers to accept a debit card with the name “Speed” apparently this new card was guaranteed to work abroad. Well I never got chance to find out. The replacement card which I paid QAR50 for never arrived in my post box and they cancelled my old card within a week of me asking for a new card leaving me with no way of accessing my money. After checking my post for two weeks I went to the branch again to sort it out they said that they could issue me an unnamed “Speed” card for QAR50 straight away only I would have to come back the next day because they didn’t have one.

I pointed out that I was going to be travelling in three days time and I didn’t have time to spend another hour waiting the next day for a card which might be there (she couldn’t guarantee that they would have them the next day) and therefore would they please arrange to transfer the balance of my account to another person I was travelling with. Her response was that they couldn’t do transfers that day (it was Saturday) or even schedule a transfer for the next day – I would have to come in again.

At that point I had had enough, with the non existent service and requested that they paid me the balance of my account and immediately close the account. She was unable to do that too. I had to go to the reception counter and get them to write me a cheque for cash and then wait 90 minutes for my turn at the cashier to convert it to cash. However during this 90 minutes they decided to close the branch for an hour and threw everyone who was waiting for service out until they reopened it.

There were also had problems with their Internet security and reliability. About half the time I tried to use the online banking service to make a transfer it came up with service unavailable. The method for adding payees for transfers was laughable. You added a new payee to the system and entered a telephone number for them to confirm it with you. They then phoned you within a day or so and asked you to confirm your identity number to authenticate yourself and permit transfers to the payee. Just in case you forgot your identity number they helpfully displayed it at the top of the page where you entered the telephone number. Anyone see the basic flaw?

At least I got my money back. Its now been paid into a non-QNB bank account of a friend ready for my next trip.

I’ve now got to find another bank. Maybe I’ll try IBQ this time.