Client: BankIslami Pakistan Ltd. Project: Implementation of iMAL – Islamic Banking Solution from Path Solutions, Kuwait. Technology: iMAL Islamic Banking Solution, Sybase ASE, Suse Linux.Client Overview
BankIslami Pakistan Limited is a leading Authentic Islamic Bank in Pakistan, offering truly & fully Shariah Compliant financial products. BankIslami launched its first branch as a full fledged Islamic Bank, the second Islamic bank in Pakistan, in March 2006 after getting Islamic Banking License from the State Bank of Pakistan. Today BankIslami is the fastest growing Islamic Bank in Pakistan with a network of 102 branches spread all over the country.
The Bank envisioned to focus primarily on Wealth Management as the core area of business in addition to Shariah compliant Retail Banking products, Proprietary and Third party products, and Integrated financial planning services.BankIslami, in line with its aggressive growth strategy, achieved sizable expansion in both its finances and deposits over the period of its operations. While growth in deposits is mainly supported by individual depositors conscious of Shariah compliance, Corporate and SMEs were main contributories towards expansion of the advances portfolio. Moreover, BankIslami made inroads into the consumer segment with launch of home financing product – Muskun and Car Ijara products. Nonetheless, Corporate lending continued dominating BankIslami’s advances portfolio, with overall low asset yield restricting any material improvement in spreads. The bank, in addition to expanding its current corporate and SMEs loan book, has penetrated further, though cautiously, into the consumer segment.
Problems Faced
The system already in place at BankIslami was not fully supportive of the Islamic Banking practices carried out by the bank. The solution was not capable enough to support the aggressively growing branch network and the product offerings by BankIslami. The systems lacked the international standards set for Shariah compliant products etc.
Implemented Solution
BankIslami has acquired the core banking software, iMal, developed by Path Solutions, a software house in the Middle East. Based on Shariah stipulations and compliant with Basel II accord, and international accounting and auditing standards, iMal provides an integrated solution for all operational requirements, while supporting other business functions of the bank. iMal also provides proactive risk management capabilities.
Benefits Provided to BankIslami
Comprehensive Decision Support & Reporting Tools
Integrated system for Pool Management, Calculation and Disbursement of profit.
Supports all Shariah compliant products.
Fully AAOIFI & IAS Compliant.
Basel II Risk Management.
End-to-end Trade Finance capabilities.
Treasury & Trading Systems.
Profitability - Asset & Liability Management.
Seamless integration with the old system.
Seamlessly integrated multi-channel delivery
Seamless integration with ATM Switch.
Seamless integration with SWIFT Gateway.
System-Wide Features
Fully Integrated Modularized Solution.
Real-time inter-branch reconciliation
No time consuming end-of-day / or period-end processing
Real-time settlements across cities & zones
High data retention capabilities - real-time access to historical data
Seamless multi-currency transaction support
Basel II compliant risk management approach that allows grouping at client - category specific levels
Elimination of discrepancies due to immediate execution of all transactions
Comments from the CEO
“Our major concern was to upgrade the existing system and boost the efficiency of our bank. We are increasing our competence to have our Islamic banking products restructured for future growth and in pursuing this objective we sought a partner that has a successful track record in providing and implementing Shariah based banking software ready to integrate with no trouble with our existing system.
Partnering with Path Solutions has provided us benefits that helped achieve our goals of growth and profitability”.
(Hasan A. Bilgrami – BankIslami Pakistan)
