SBP declared second best central bank: The News

KARACHI: The fourth annual Islamic Finance News Poll results are in after a record breaking 2,491 unique votes were cast by the Islamic finance industry’s leading practitioners and participants.In the financial sphere, 2008 was deemed by many as an annus horribilis with the global markets plummeting following in large to the US mortgage industry, said a statement of the State Bank of Pakistan on Saturday.

The Islamic finance industry also succumbed to market forces but by and large fared better than its conventional counterparts, it noted.What is clear, from the results of the 2008 Islamic Finance news poll, is that the more focused and specialised Islamic financial institutions are favoured to those of the larger global historically conventional institutions with Islamic operations.With 2,491 votes cast, this is the industry’s most comprehensive and definitive survey.

In the Best Overall Islamic Bank category, Kuwait Finance House again ran out easy favourites for the second year running. Malaysia’s CIMB Islamic Bank climbed one place to second this year with Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Corporation taking third spot. One notable absentee from this category is the two times winner and runner-up in 2007, Dubai Islamic Bank.

As more of the world’s financial centres announce their interest in attracting Islamic finance to their shores one would assume the Best Central Bank in Promoting Islamic Finance category would be more competitive. Not so. For the fourth straight year Bank Negara Malaysia was voted number one with more than double the votes of their nearest rival, the State Bank of Pakistan, which itself leapfrogged the Central Bank of Bahrain into second place this year.

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