KARACHI: The President and CEO of BankIslami, Syed Amir Ali stressed upon the stakeholders in the financial and banking sector to develop the solutions, models, and procedures for overcoming the economic challenges in wake of the pandemic, while addressing the 4th International Conference on Islamic Banking and Finance at IoBM recently as a guest speaker.
Regarding the role of the organizations, Syed Amir Ali noted that there is a growing need and demand for interest-free solutions to meet the legitimate financial needs of businesses and individuals. “Islamic banking is definitely a way forward. If there is a demand for Islamic financial institutions, we will be there to fulfill it, he remarked.
He went on to say that the asset base of the Islamic banking industry during the July 2019 to June 2020 period grew by 21 percent. Now, the assets under management of the Islamic banking institutions stand at over 3.6 trillion rupees. Besides this, the deposit number is approximately at 3 trillion rupees. With this, the share of Islamic banking in the country stands at 16.9 percent, he added.
The CEO further said that we, as a nation, need to shift our role from being identifiers to solution givers. “We are very good at identifying problems, but we need to be those who devise the solutions too.” He called for providing the SMEs with credit guarantees to help the sector stand on its feet. He said the way the country’s businesses have recovered during the pandemic is phenomenal.
One of the most technologically advanced banks with 340+ branches in 114+ cities, BankIslami has been playing its due role in mitigating the impact of the pandemic, including the donation of testing kits and PPEs and organizational capacity-building.
