Governor SBP appointed chairman of IFSB council

KARACHI: Dr Reza Baqir, governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), has been appointed as chairman of the Council of Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), Malaysia, for the year 2022, a statement said on Friday.

Governor Baqir’s appointment was approved by the IFSB council in its 39th meeting held on December 9 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). He had been serving earlier as the deputy chairman of the IFSB council for the year 2021. He will also be serving as the chairman of the IFSB general assembly for the year 2022. The general assembly is the representative body of all the members of the IFSB, namely full members, associate members, and observer members.

Governor SBP said he felt deeply honored to assume the chairmanship of the council of IFSB and expressed that with the support of his fellow council members, he aspires to help IFSB realise its mandate as envisaged in IFSB’s strategic performance plan 2022-24.

According to IFSB’s global Islamic financial services stability report 2021, total worth of the Islamic financial services industry (Islamic banking, Islamic capital markets, and Takaful) is estimated at $2.70 trillion in 2020. In Pakistan, currently there are five full-fledged Islamic banks and seventeen conventional banks operating with standalone Islamic banking branches offering a wide array of Shariah compliant financial solutions.

As at June 2021, the market share of the Islamic banking industry assets and deposits in the overall banking sector stood at 17 percent and 18.7 percent, respectively and the branch network of Islamic banking institutions comprises over 3583 branches and 1562 windows.

It is worth noting that the IFSB council is the senior executive and policymaking body of the IFSB. It consists of one representative each from a full member of the IFSB, comprising senior executives from leading regulatory and supervisory authorities on Islamic finance.

Currently, there are 187 members of the IFSB, which comprise 81 regulatory and supervisory authorities, 10 international inter-governmental organizations, and 96 market players (financial institutions, professional firms, industry associations and stock exchanges) operating in 57