Pakistan-based Summit Bank has launched first Islamic banking branch in Karachi, as part of its strategy to convert the entire traditional banking into Islamic banking within the next three years.
Summit Bank president and CEO Hussain Lawai was quoted by Business Recorder as saying, "Actually, we have created an Islamic bank within Summit Bank and planned to transform all branches into Islamic mode of banking by the end of 2016."
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"This is the soft launching of Islamic banking by the Summit Bank and mega launching will be held by the end of next month, when all our Islamic operations will be streamlined," Lawai told the publication.
Under the first phase of its transformation program, the bank will open Islamic branches across the four major cities, including Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Islamabad during 2014.
"We have also initiated some orientation programmes for the customers to promote Islamic banking, besides special staff training for Islamic banking," Lawai concluded.
The bank aims to tap the Islamic banking growth in Pakistan, which is growing 30% per annum, compared to 10-12% of traditional banking sector.
