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Pakistan to have 3 new Islamic banks
PESHAWAR, Jan 06 : Three new Islamic banks will be established in the current fiscal year to encourage Islamic banking system and investment in the country, Liaqat Durrani, Managing Director State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said.
“The SBP has issued licenses to three interested parties for setting up Islamic banks”, he told reporters after attending a daylong seminar on “Banking Challenges in 21st century,” held here at Preston University.
The SBP has planned a training programme for the bankers and students of Human Resource Management (HRM) to train them on Islamic mode of banking.
“Only those banks would survive which kept themselves up-to-date with latest banking techniques, operational competence, E-banking system and train its staffers on regular basis,” Durrani remarked.
Durrani informed that national economy has shown upward trend during last couple of years as export is on the rise and business activities are gaining strength with every passing day.
Over Rs 750 billion rupees are in circulation, he informed and added that new currency notes of Rs 10 and Rs 5000 denomination would be introduced in the current fiscal year.
The SMEs, he said, are contributing 30 percent in the national economy.
Earlier in his key note address at the seminar, he said that it was in the early part of the 1990’s when the inherent weakness of the banking structure was recognized and a comprehensive reforms process in the country was initiated.
The MD said that fifteen years later, the landscape of the banking system in Pakistan was changed. He maintained that the country has made significant progress in implementing financial sector reforms and has achieved a more competitive market structure with expending market share of private sector banks.
He said that due to prudent regulatory measures, the local banking industry is now considerably resilient in absorbing adverse stocks, both internal and external.
He said time was now ripe for further strengthening and reshapping the reforms process, adding that this was essential not only from the point of view of capatilsing on the achieved robustness of the banking industry, but also to integrate it with global economy deep into 21st century.
Durrani said that the 21st century challenges for Pakistani banking industry were broadly of internal and external nature. He said the external challenges were the ones that stemmed from within banking industry and carried a profound effect on the long run robustness of the banking industry.
Tabraiz Hassan, Regional Business and Operational Chief, National Bank of Pakistan, Badr Hassan, Area Head North, Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB) and Rashid Qazi, Vice President PICIC Commercial Bank, Peshawar also read out their papers on the occasion and highlighted various constraints and challenges. Earlier Vice Chancellor, Preston University, Kohat, Dr Anwar Hassan highlighted various achievement secured by his university in the field of education.