It has been announced that State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Dr. Reza Baqir has been appointed to chair Malaysia’s Council of Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB).
After a unanimous vote at its 39th meeting, the IFSB Council approved Baqir’s appointment and announced it on Friday in a statement. He had previously served as the IFSB Council’s deputy chairman for the year 2021.
In addition, Dr. Reza Baqir will chair the IFSB General Assembly in 2022. Observer Members, Associate Members, and Full Members are all represented in the General Assembly of the IFSB.
Announcing his new role as IFSB Council Chairman, Governor SBP expressed his deep gratitude. For their confidence in him, his fellow council members, he said, he thanked them. He also thanked Mr. Khaled Mohamed Balama Al Tameemi, the UAE’s Central Bank Governor, for a job well done during the Council’s 2021 session. Aiming to help IFSB fulfill its mandate and continue providing high-quality intellectual guidance to the global Islamic finance industry, Governor SBP said he hoped to do so with the support of his fellow Council Members, as envisioned in IFSB’s ambitious and forward-looking Strategic Performance Plan 2022-24. IFSB will become one of the most progressive and robust standard-setting bodies in the world as a result of his efforts, as well.
The IFSB Council is the IFSB’s highest-ranking executive and policy-making body. One representative from each full member of the IFSB is on the committee, which is made up of senior executives from the most important Islamic financial regulatory and supervisory bodies. The IFSB currently has 187 members, including 81 regulatory and supervisory authorities, 10 international intergovernmental organizations, and 96 market players (financial institutions, professional firms, industry associations, and stock exchanges) operating in 57 jurisdictions.
Additionally, the Council’s responsibilities include approving and making the by-laws of the IFSB, as well as adopting and approving for publication prudential and supervisory standards. When IFSB was founded in 2003 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as an international standard-setting organisation, it covered a wide range of topics, including risk management and capital adequacy as well as the supervisory review process and transparency and disclosure that goes along with it. Islamic Financial Services (Islamic Banking, Islamic Capital Markets, and Takaful) are estimated to be worth USD 2.70 trillion in 2020, according to the IFSB’s global Islamic financial services stability report 2021.
Various IFSB prudential standards and guidelines have been adopted by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in light of local legal and regulatory requirements in order to strengthen Islamic banking’s regulatory and supervisory infrastructure. As a founding member and current full member of IFSB, SBP has actively participated in IFSB’s various forums in order to further the organization’s goals.
There are currently five (5) full-fledged Islamic banks in Pakistan and seventeen (17) conventional banks with independent Islamic banking branches offering a wide range of Shariah-compliant financial services. At the end of June 2021, the Islamic banking industry’s assets and deposits accounted for 17.7 percent and 18.2 percent of the total banking sector’s assets and deposits respectively, with a total of 3583 branches and 1562 windows.
In the last two decades, the Islamic banking sector in Pakistan has grown to be a systemically important part of the banking industry.
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