Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today?
With about 15 years of experience in international financial institutions, I founded the first African Institute of Islamic Finance (AIIF-Advisory and Training) after being the head of SME at Citibank.
Since 2003 I have been exploring ways to introduce Islamic finance in Africa. My research led to the meeting in 2006 with the former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, and the director of the Islamic Finance Institute of Malaysia.
I also organized the first Islamic finance forum in January 2010 in Dakar through a partnership with the Senegal ministry of finance and the IDB.
What does your role involve?
My role involves providing strategic guidelines in advisory and training to position AIIF as the leading African institute in Islamic finance in terms of quality standards, innovation, strategic partnerships and forum organizations.
Which of your products/services deliver the best results?
Regular professional training and government advisory services for regulation changes in Islamic finance.
What are the strengths of your business?
As a pioneer in the industry, our main strength resides in distinctive expertise in the field of Islamic finance and our quality standards both in training and advisory services. The AIIF is regarded today as the reference point in Africa in both advisory and training as far as Islamic finance is concerned. We are the best firm positioned in this region of the world to advise Islamic financial institutions keen in invest to invest in West Africa, which has a predominantly Muslim population and a huge potential for growth.
What is your greatest achievement to date?
My greatest achievement has been to trigger both political and private interest in Islamic finance in West Africa through successful Islamic finance forums in Dakar in 2010 and 2011 with the presence of local authorities and major international decision makers in that field.
What are the factors contributing to the success of your company?
Being a pioneer in Islamic finance in the West African region is a key success factor.
What are the obstacles faced in running your business today?
The main obstacles are: the lack of an adequate regulatory environment for Islamic finance, the lack of government consciousness of real opportunities offered by Islamic finance for West Africa and the lack of local experts.
Furthermore, Senegal is a French-speaking country while most of the literature in Islamic finance is in English or Arabic. This language barrier makes AIIF’s mission more challenging given that most of our partners are English-speaking.
Where do you see the Islamic finance industry in the next five years?
I see Islamic financial institutions representing at least 20% of the financial institutions in most of the predominantly Muslim countries in the next five years.
In West Africa I predict the establishment of at least five fully-fledged Islamic financial institutions and a few Shariah compliant investment funds. Senegal is in the process of issuing a Sukuk and we have requests from almost all West African countries to develop training programs for them.
Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance.
Benchmarking the interest rate from the conventional model should stop. Islamic finance needs to set its own approach which is the Musharakah spirit. I believe that training in Islamic finance should focus more on building models in line with its basic philosophy.