KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has been voted as the best central bank in promoting Islamic finance for the fourth time by a poll conducted by Islamic Finance News (IFN) of REDmoney Group Malaysia on Thursday.

This is the second international award bestowed upon the SBP for Islamic Banking during FY21. Earlier, the Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) has also declared the SBP as the best central bank of the year in September 2020.

“It is always a closely contested battle for the top spot, but 2020 was rather more of a runaway victory than we have seen in recent years. The 2018 winner, the State Bank of Pakistan, achieved a decisive win with almost three quarters of the votes,” the IFN said while announcing the poll results.

It was further stated by IFN that this year despite global pandemic, they have received the highest number of votes for the poll in its 16 years history.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2021