KARACHI: The assets of Shariah compliant banks in Pakistan have increased by 30.6 per cent to Rs4.39 trillion by end of quarter January – March 2021 as compared with Rs3.36 trillion in the same quarter of the last year, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Friday.
The assets base industry share of Islamic banking increased to 17 per cent in March 2021 as compared with 15.2 per cent in the same month of the last year.
The deposits of the Islamic banks also registered a growth of 28.4 per cent to Rs3.45 trillion by the quarter January – March 2021 as compared with Rs2.69 trillion in the same quarter of the last year.
The share of the Islamic banks in overall deposits of the industry rose to 18.7 per cent in March 2021 as compared with 16.9 per cent in March 2020.
The composition of Islamic banking industry remained same with 22 Islamic Banking Institutions (IBIs) comprising of 5 full-fledged Islamic Banks (IBs) and 17 Conventional Banks having standalone Islamic Banking Branches (IBBs) by end March, 2021.
During the period under review, 48 branches were added in branch network of IBI; as a result, the branch network of IBI increased to 3,504 branches (spread across 124 districts of the country) by end March, 2021.
The number of Islamic banking windows (dedicated counters at conventional branches) operated by IBBs stood at 1,595 by end March, 2021, the SBP said.
Investments (net) of IBI registered an increase of Rs 84 billion during the period under review and stood at Rs 1,345 billion by end March, 2021. This increase in investments (net) can be mainly attributed to investments made by IBI in Government of Pakistan (GoP) domestic Ijarah Sukuk. It is worth mentioning here that GoP issued two domestic Ijarah Sukuk of Rs 75 billion (approximately) during the period under review.
