KARACHI – Meezan Bank Limited has held the 17th Shariah Supervisory Board meeting. The meeting was chaired by Justice (r) Muhammad Taqi Usmani; other members of the Shariah Board include Sheikh Essam M. Ishaq from Bahrain and Dr Muhammad Imran Usmani. The senior management of Meezan Bank including President and CEO Irfan Siddiqui and Chief Operating Officer Ariful Islam were also present at the meeting.
The Shariah Board praised the performance of the bank and showed overall satisfaction on the Shariah conformity of the products and overall business and transactions of Meezan Bank. Several important matters including new products related to liquidity management using Sukuk and corporate financing were discussed and approved.
The board also reviewed the Meezan Islamic Index Criteria for screening stocks for Shariah-compliance and decided to further adjust the criteria of Total debt to Asset ratio from 40 percent to 37 percent. With the revision of this criterion, the companies where interest based debt to total assets are 37 percent or less would be considered eligible for the purpose of Islamic mutual funds and Meezan Islamic index. This revision would encourage the corporate sector to shift toward Islamic banking to fulfill their financing needs.
Meezan Bank is the first and largest Islamic Bank in Pakistan. The bank is now ranked as the eleventh largest bank of the country in terms of branch network, boasting a network of 222 branches in 63 cities of Pakistan. Meezan Bank offers a complete range of Islamic banking products and services including free online banking for all Pakistani rupee accounts at all its branches.
The Bank’s retail banking network is supported by extensive banking services that include over 170 ATMs, internet banking, VISA debit card and a well equipped call center. The Bank’s VISA debit card allows its customers to shop at more than 30 million merchants worldwide and withdraw funds from their accounts from more than 1.4 million ATM’s worldwide.
