Kazakhstan’s Zaman-Bank has officially established itself as an Islamic bank after receiving an Islamic banking licence from the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the Astana Times reported on August 28.
Established in 1991 as a commercial bank, Zaman-Bank originally planned to turn into Islamic Banking back in 2014, but a lack of regulations on converting regular commercial banks to Islamic banks stalled the process.
Prior to Zaman-Bank’s transformation, Al Hilal Bank, created in 2010 as part of an intergovernmental agreement between Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), stood as the country’s only Islamic bank.
An Islamic bank is required to conform to both principles of Islamic law and the central bank’s regulations.
Zaman-Bank in 2013 signed a partnership agreement with the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), a member of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group. ICD subsequently gained a mandate to transform Zaman-Bank into an Islamic bank “with expected investment of up to 35% of the bank’s subscribed and paid-up capital”, the report said.
Zaman-Bank will mainly focus on retail banking and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
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