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Shah Fahad Yousufzai
Head of Islamic banking Ghazanfar Bank Afghanistan Malaysian |
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Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today? Later, I was approved by the central bank of Afghanistan to initiate Islamic banking operations for Ghazanfar Bank, the first Islamic bank in Afghanistan that has branches in six provinces to serve its people. I have been working here for the last one year as head of Islamic banking. Our goal is to make Afghanistan a role model in Islamic banking globally in the next five years.
What does your role involve? I am also responsible for the administration and management of the Islamic banking staff and I make it a point to brief them daily on Shariah compliant products so as to keep them abreast with the latest news or technology on Islamic finance and banking. Besides encouraging the Islamic banking team to enhance the bank’s business with the usage of proper documentation, I correspond daily with all the Islamic branches and assist them in solving banking problems through regular correspondence with our Shariah committee members and other Shariah scholars.
What is your greatest achievement to date?
Which of your products/services deliver the best results? What are the strengths of your business? What are the factors contributing to the success of your company?
What are the obstacles faced in running your business today? Mainly, we are currently competing with more than 15 conventional banks in Afghanistan that offer full fledged conventional products. Certain products such as Islamic credit cards and Takaful are not available in the Afghanistan market and this makes it tougher and more challenging for us to compete. Apart from that, terrorist activities also pose obstacles in running our business. Where do you see the Islamic finance industry in, say, the next five years or so? Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance. I would like to see all Islamic banks adopting these uniform standards and implementing them as soon as possible in order to enhance and facilitate trade between Islamic banks and to spruce up cross-border activities In addition to that, Shariah scholars also should play a wider role in the Islamic finance world by guiding the Islamic banks in implementing AAOIFI’s Islamic banking standards in their daily activities. This is in order to stave off defaults and problems that might occur during the application of the standards.
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