IslamicFinance.de

Although Central Bank of Qatar (CBQ) set the deadline requiring the country's conventional banks which have opened Islamic banking windows to close them down to be Dec. 31, 2011, it has passed almost without being noticed.
Some Islamic bankers are now stating that the move was required to prevent the alleged rampant co-mingling of conventional and Islamic funds at some of the Islamic banking windows, and that the Qatari Islamic banking sector has been successfully re-aligned and consolidated.
The clear message of the directive is that dedicated standalone Islamic banks are favored to half-way houses where co-mingling and all sorts of compromises are possible if not the norm.
The affected banks included the Al-Islami window of Qatar National Bank (QNB), the largest bank in the emirate; Commercial Bank of Qatar; Doha Bank; HSBC Amanah; Ahli Bank; Al-Khaliji Bank and International Bank of Qatar (IBQ), which between them had 16 Islamic banking branches in Qatar.