ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Islamic banking and finance industry is expanding to new fields.
Last week, the State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank, granted its first licence to a micro-finance bank and brought it into the Islamic mode, reports Khaleej Times.
According to a report, the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), the biggest commercial bank in the country, announced a plan to raise its own network of Islamic banking to 100 branches.
The third development was that Standard Chartered Bank won the Islamic Finance Award-2015. It was expected, it would attract other foreign-based banks to start Islamic banking in Pakistan, Khaleej Times reported.
It said that the SBP’s decision to grant Islamic banking licence to National Rural Support Programme Micro-finance Bank (NRSP-MB) of Bahawalpur paved the way for introduction of Islamic banking to a number of micro-finance banks.
In fact, the report said that more such banks are projected to come into the field to fund small businessmen, especially women entrepreneurs.
The second and crucial element, the Khaleej Times said was that a large number of these entrepreneurs are willing to go for Islamic financing and by its very nature and the financial status of its potential clients; it would have to be low-cost, cheap financing, it added.
The report further said that the NRSP-MB will provide Shariah-compliant banking services, experimentally and its operations started in March 2011, the report said.
It chiefly caters to the needs of farmers in 61 districts all over Pakistan but mainly in the low-income central region.
Quoting Abid Qamar, SBP’s chief spokesman, the report said: “NRSP Microfinance Bank Limited has been allowed to start Islamic micro-finance operations as a pilot project for six months. However, the licence will be issued after successful completion of the pilot-run and fulfillment of other requirements.”
The report said Pakistan now has a total of 44 micro-credit providers, of which ten are micro-banks, six rural support programmes, 16 specialized micro institutions and 12 run by non-governmental bodies.
