KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Deputy Governor Saeed Ahmad has said that despite the increasing demand for Islamic banking, people don’t know much about this system.
He said this at the launch of the second phase of media campaign aimed at promoting Islamic banking in the country. He congratulated the stakeholders on the successful completion of the first phase which primarily focused on developing awareness and improving visibility of Islamic banking in the country.
The main theme of the second phase focuses on preparation of documentaries on Islamic finance explaining the basic concepts, practices and general misconceptions, intensive use of print media, engaging electronic media for initiating talks on Islamic banking and finance by renowned Islamic finance professionals, highlighting value proposition and Shariah compliance of Islamic banking and dissemination of brochures and pamphlets.
The deputy governor said that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar will launch the third round of the Financial Innovation Challenge Fund on January 9, 2015 in Islamabad.
The theme of the next round is to invite business schools and universities for the establishment of a “Centre of Excellence for Islamic Banking and Finance”.
Chairman Committee for Media Campaign Irfan Siddiqui said that with coordinated efforts the Islamic banking industry will achieve its 20 per cent market share target by 2020.
Islamic banking industry, which currently accounts for a 9.8% share in the banking sector, continued to grow as both assets and deposits increased during the second quarter of calendar year 2014, according to the latest publicly available data.
Assets of the Islamic banking industry reached Rs1.08 trillion in the quarter ending on June 30 compared to Rs1.01 trillion of the preceding quarter, according to Islamic Banking Bulletin for April-June quarter of CY14. The industry’s deposits increased to Rs932 billion during the quarter under review compared to Rs872 billion of the previous quarter.
On the contrary, the market share of Islamic banking industry’s deposits in the overall banking industry declined slightly to finish at 10.6% during the quarter ending June 2014.
