KARACHI • Pakistan’s central bank is considering granting Islamic banking licences to two new applicants, a senior official has said.
Director Islamic Banking Department of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Pervez Saeed said a “couple of new licences are in the pipeline”, but preferred not to give details.
Presently four full-fledged Islamic banks are doing business in the country. According to him, the number of Islamic bank branches including dedicated Islamic branches of commercial banks has reached 100 against 7,000 conventional bank branches.He disclosed the issue of Islamic banking was being raised once again with the Supreme Court of Pakistan, but did not divulge the details. The official said the Supreme Court, in its landmark judgment on Riba, wanted to fix a timeline for the implementation of interest-free banking in the country, but the regulators argued there must not be any timeframe and the public must be free to choose between Riba-free banking or otherwise, so both the systems should be allowed to run parallel to each other.
The SBP official said ultimately the efficiency of Islamic banking would prevail, adding the Islamic Financial Board, headquartered in Malaysia, “nowadays is busy in formulating standards for Islamic banks and these standards will be implemented globally.”