You know, you do pay through the nose to access money from abroad. However, I keep very little in Qatar, just enough for emergencies. I use US credit and debit cards and realize I'm being heavily penalized but it's the price I'm willing to pay to insure the safety and security of my money. If a Qatari bank goes under, I'm pretty sure I won't be seeing my dollars. US credit cards are insured against fraud, local ones are not. If there is a legal dispute I suspect the local account would be frozen. My US cards are accepted in all ATMs and I pay by credit cards elsewhere. For the 1-2% (or perhaps more) I'm OK.
You know, you do pay through the nose to access money from abroad. However, I keep very little in Qatar, just enough for emergencies. I use US credit and debit cards and realize I'm being heavily penalized but it's the price I'm willing to pay to insure the safety and security of my money. If a Qatari bank goes under, I'm pretty sure I won't be seeing my dollars. US credit cards are insured against fraud, local ones are not. If there is a legal dispute I suspect the local account would be frozen. My US cards are accepted in all ATMs and I pay by credit cards elsewhere. For the 1-2% (or perhaps more) I'm OK.