Afghan Biographies

Islamic Bank of Afghanistan (IBA)


Name Islamic Bank of Afghanistan (IBA)
Ethnic backgr.
Date of birth
Function/Grade Names and Background
History and Biodata

Names (as of 20190826):
CEO and President:
Syed Musa Kaleem Al-Falahi
Deputy Chief Executive Officer: Dr. Momin Zadran
Deputy Chief Executive Officer: Sharifullah Ibrahimi
Chief Finance Officer: Faizan Ahmed (CIPA, CSAA, CIFP)

Board of Supervisors (as of 20180423):

Ronald Stride

Hamidullah Abdul Mohib (has been a member of the Board since 2005 and sits on the Compensation and Risk Committees. He is an executive director at Mohib Holdings, responsible for strategic planning and treasury operations for the group’s various activities in Central Asia and the Middle East. Mohib was educated at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario.)
Lutfullah Rahmat (Rahmat is past-chairman of AIB and has been a member of the Board since the Bank’s inception in 2004. He is also managing director of the Rahmat Group, the Karachi-based company that has Star Textile Mills Ltd as its principal member; president of Rahmat Fruit Processing Corporation and Rahmat Corrugation Corporation in Afghanistan; and a partner in the sole agents for Samsung Electronics and Appliances in Afghanistan. He graduated with a BCom degree from Bombay University.)
Veronica John
Salman Shoaib (joined the AIB Board in 2012. He is based in Singapore and is Managing Director of a funds management company, having spent 16 years with Crédit Suisse in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore, holding positions that included head of asset management for Asia Pacific. He has a BA degree in Economics from Brown University and an MPhil degree in Finance from Cambridge University.)
Aditya Srivastava
 

Chief Executive Officer, Member of Management Board :
Anthony Barned

joined AIB in 2016 after having served as the chairman of its audit committee since 2008. He has over 40 years of commercial banking experience both as a banker holding senior management positions with the Barclays group and the Bank of Ceylon and as a consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton. He is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, London.
CEO and President of the bank: Syed Moosa Kaleem Al-Falahi(20190826)

  • Chief Operating Officer, Member of Management Board:
    Asadullah Fayzi
    holds the dual positions of CIO and COO, having joined AIB at its inception in 2004 as head of IT, and having previously been IT manager for Afghanistan Reconstruction Company. He was appointed to his current position during 2012. He holds an MSc in telecommunications from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey.

Chief Finance Officer, Member of Management Board:
Lalit Kumar Jha

holds a Bachelor’s degree in commerce and is a qualified chartered accountant with more than 20 years’ experience, mainly in the banking sector. 

He has been CFO at AIB since 2010, having previously been senior vice-president at Dresdner Bank, New Delhi, and head of accounts and taxation at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, New Delhi.

Head of Corporate and Institutional Banking, Member of Management Board:

Omer Omery has nine years’ experience with AIB, from managing a regional branch to electronic banking, marketing, small business loans, and general branch management. He also spent three years in a managerial position with the United Nations Organization. He is a candidate for an MBA in International Business from the University of Liverpool, England.

Head of Strategic Projects:
Mohammad Taofiq Mir

Mir began his banking career in 2006 with AIB. He managed electronic banking channels and was Head of Retail Banking before becoming Head of Special Projects in 2014. He holds a BSc in electrical engineering from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.

Head of Islamic banking:
Zulfiqar Ali Khan

Khan joined AIB in 2014 as of Head of Islamic banking, and oversees Banking for small business, trade finance, and commercial banking. He has over 9 years of experience as a central and commercial banker. Mr. Khan’s a PhD Finance (Islamic finance) candidate, and hold MSc in banking and finance and bachelor degree in economics, and has attended many professional certification in the areas of banking and finance from different central banks and professional banking institutes.

Shareholders:
Horizon Association                              46.25%
Wilton Holdings                                     46.25%
International Finance Corporation (IFC)  7.5%



Background:

Afghanistan’s central bank has granted a license to the Islamic Bank of Afghanistan (IBA), the first lender in the country to apply the interest-free principles of Islamic finance in all its operations.(20180423)
The IBA was previously known as Bakhtar Bank and operated under a conventional banking license since it was acquired by Azizi Bank in 2009. The central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank, granted the license on April 9, 2018  after the IBA completed the conversion of its balance sheet, said Faizan Ahmed, chief financial officer and member of the IBA management board. The bank began converting its assets and deposits in January 2018 to adhere to religious principles that include bans on gambling, alcohol and interest-bearing debt. The IBA had paid-up capital of $25 million and held $187 million of deposits as of December 2017, offering its services across a network of 59 branches. Afghanistan’s banking sector is small, but Islamic finance is seen as an important feature that could help attract more people into the financial system. IBA estimates that only 5.7 percent of the population has dealings with the banking sector. The bank hopes to capitalize on its branch network - the third largest in the country - to double its balance sheet over the next two years. A majority of households in the country of 30 million shun interest-based finance, partly for religious reasons. The central bank issued a regulatory framework for Islamic banking in 2015 to address this, with rules based on standards issued by the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions. IBA’s current products include a mudaraba savings account, a form of investment management partnership, as well as financing products based on ijara, an installment-based leasing contract. Islamic banking has been offered in Afghanistan by a handful of firms through so-called Islamic windows, but there have been no full-fledged Islamic banks which are common in countries such as Malaysia, Pakistan and Bahrain. Lenders with Islamic windows include Afghan United Bank, Ghazanfar Bank and Afghanistan International Bank.

 

Last Modified 2023-07-15
Established 2018-04-23