Holding on to its crown after a triumphant return to victory in 2024, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has kept its head up high and eyes laser-focused on ushering the Republic toward a new age of full financial Shariah compliance by 2027.
For that, it has been voted as the Best Central Bank in Promoting Islamic Finance for the second consecutive year.
Governance drove SBP’s Islamic finance initiatives in 2025: its revised Shariah Governance Framework became effective at the start of the year and introduced a raft of policies to enhance transparency and efficiency of Islamic banks.
It is also worthy to note that the SBP continued adopting AAOIFI standards – by mid-2025, it had adopted about 20 AAOIFI standards. All these measures were implemented as part of its 3rd Strategic Plan for the Islamic Banking Industry (2021-25).
The league of runner-ups for this category shuffled with Bank Negara Malaysia coming in second, and Bank Indonesia third.
