Institute of Business Administration (IBA) announced the establishment of the Centre for Excellence in Islamic Finance at IBA. IBA has launched IBA-CEIF in collaboration with Meezan Bank and Dr Ishrat Hussain will be Chairman CEIF, while Irfan Siddiqui, CEO Meezan Bank Ltd, Hassan Bilgrami CEO BankIslami Ltd, Shafqaat Ahmed CEO Al Barkah Bank Ltd, Junaid Ahmed CEO Dubai Islamic Bank, Dr Imran Usmani, Shari'ah Advsior Meezan Bank Ltd, Samar Hasnain Executive Director, Development Finance Group State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Ahmed Ali Siddiqui, Founding Director of CEIF, are founding members of Board of Management (BoM).
Talking to newsmen here on Friday at IBA city campus, Dr Ishrat Hussain, Chairman CEIF, said that the Center had been set-up with the objective to bridge the gap between trained human resource and industry's growing requirement. He hoped that IBA-CEIF will play a vital role for providing skilled and qualified workforce to the Islamic Banking Industry of Pakistan. On the occasion Ahmed Ali Siddiqui, Founding Director of CEIF and Dr Zeeshan was also present.
Chairman CEIF said that Centre for Excellence in Islamic Finance has won the competitive award under a challenge competition organised by SBP, which is being financed under a programme by UK Aid. This centre will offer degree programmes in Islamic Finance, besides conducting research and case studies for enhancing and disseminating knowledge in Islamic Finance, he informed.
"We will offer short term open and customized executive courses for the professionals working in the industry and will provide a platform for debate, discussion and discourse on the current issues, the future evolution of Islamic Finance," he mentioned. In addition, with collaborate of international players CEIF will assure introduction of best practices, governance and management in the Islamic banking industry of the country, he added.
This is the largest initiative taken in history of IBA and with these features, the Centre is in advance stages of establishing international collaborations to make it a truly world class Centre, Chairman CEIF said. Talking about the banking industry scope in Pakistan, he said that a large number of masses agreed to join Shariah mode of banking, but in real term they preferred profitability, that is higher in conventional banking.
"SBP is making efforts to promote the Islamic Banking and as part of these efforts SBP being a regulator is encouraging new Islamic Banking licenses and discouraging the new conventional banks," he added. To a question he said that Pakistan's entire banking system cannot be switched over to Islamic mode of banking. "In such case our banking system will collapse as global system, which largely depends on conventional, will not support us, therefore it should be converted in phases for sustainable conversion," he added.
Dr Ishrat said that still there were many sectors where Islamic Banks can invest hugely. "Islamic Banking industry can invest excess liquidity in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Agricultural, Housing sector as these sectors need financing for growth. Financing to SME was 17 percent of total advances in 2006 as compared to 5 percent presently," he added.