Masraf Al Rayan, Qatar's second-largest bank by market value, reported a 21.2 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit on January 26, beating analyst expectations and helped by lending growth.
The increase continues a broadly-positive results season for lenders in the Gulf state, following profit gains at Qatar National Bank and Qatar Islamic Bank. Doha Bank posted a 7.2 fall in net profit over the same period, though.
Masraf Al Rayan's net profit for the three months to December 31 was 548 million riyals ($150.5 million) compared with 452 million riyals in the same period the year before, according to Reuters calculations.
The bank did not provide a quarterly breakdown so Reuters calculated the figure based on financial statements.
Three analysts polled by Reuters had on average forecast a net profit of 535.1 million riyals.
For the full-year, financing activities reached 57.9 billion riyals, up by 39.7 percent from the end of 2013. Customer deposits reached 62.6 billion riyals, up by 29.5 percent over the same period.
Qatari bank earnings have been propelled in recent years by public spending related to a raft of infrastructure projects as the country prepares to host the soccer World Cup in 2022.
Masraf Al Rayan, which has the largest weighting of any Qatari stock by index compiler MSCI, said in a statement its net profit for 2014 was 2 billion riyals, up 17.6 percent on the year before.
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