Doha Bank launches Qatar's first E-Commerce portal "DBankSooq"

The 'Sooq' is a bi-lingual (Arabic and English) Business Exchange portal intended for both Business to Consumers (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) transactions. It is the first of its kind in Qatar and expected to set new standards for E-Commerce in the Gulf at large.

Initially, two portals have been developed targeting Qatar and Dubai. Online marketplace provides a new channel for merchants in Qatar and Dubai to showcase their products and expand their reach to customers across the world. The customers enjoy the convenience of purchasing goods online against payments by debiting their Doha Bank account or through credit cards, and get the purchased items delivered anywhere in Qatar and Dubai.

Mr. Seetharaman, CEO, Doha Bank, said:

"The Sooq is another step in Doha Bank's goal to integrate the entire array of its e-banking and e-commerce services and at the same time enhance customer convenience and create a new business opportunity for merchants in Qatar and Dubai in the form of an online marketplace. LINK Development proved to be the right partner to deliver this project. Their technical capabilities and commitment to the bank were key success factors we all felt and appreciated."

"The project will eventually integrate the whole array of services of the bank to complement the online marketplace extending the reach of Doha Bank clients to the online world with a set of options tailored for individuals, small and medium businesses as well as large corporations," added Mr. Seetharaman. "We are looking forward to extending the reach of the 'Sooq' Concept across multiple markets in the Gulf."

"We are very excited to work with Doha Bank on this project," says Sherif Dahan, Gulf Territory Manager of LINKdotNET. "Doha Bank is a very active institution that values technology and who is always keen to deliver state of the art services to the market. Their trust in LINK Development is a fact we value and that comes as a base of this new long term partnership for us in Qatar. The site is a further illustration of how LINK Development's solutions are increasingly helping many companies and institutions across the region expand into new business areas."

"We're proud to be the first project in the Middle East region to be based on the latest Microsoft Commerce Server (2007)," said Mr. U. V. K. Kumar, Head of Information Technology, Doha Bank. "The portal uses a service-oriented architecture to support re-use of common components which will facilitate addition of new portals for new countries with minimal effort."

An end to end set of E-Commerce, Auctioning and Tendering features are made available on the portal including general content management sections, supplier registration and profiling, supplier catalogues, business directories, reverse auctions, e-tenders, supplier's workspaces and reports and order management, and classifieds along with advertisement management to allow an additional revenue stream for the portal.

The portal features at its back- end an Integration Layer with middleware for SMS service, bank customers profiling, Doha Bank payment gateway and MasterCard payment gateway.

The project marks another successful delivery for LINK Development which realized numerous successes in the Gulf, Middle East and Europe in the past years across a variety of sectors. The company's vertical solutions which target banking and finance, automotive and government sectors have strengthened LINK Development's position as a leading software development house with world class qualifications.