Bonki Rushdi Tojikiston (BRT) has signed an advisory services agreement with the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), the private sector arm of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group to process and support its conversion into Shariah-compliant operations.
The agreement is designed to develop an advisory process to effectively deliver full conversion by also identifying challenges and addressing impediments.
The ICD will dedicate seven key teams across the full conversion process in areas of project management, Shariah compliance, treasury, accounting, human resources, information technology, marketing and legal framework.
“We are delighted to support one of the leading banks in the sector in its initial move toward Islamic operations and we believe this will open the door to numerous other operators identifying the opportunities inherent in the Shariah compliant financial system,” said Khaled Al-Aboodi, CEO of ICD.
Tojidin Pirzoda, chairman of the Supervisory Board of CJSC Bonki Rushdi Tojikiston, said Islamic banking was one of the positive methods of products and services of any bank. He emphasized the enormous contributions by Islamic banks in financing small and medium-sized businesses.
In October 2014 meeting in Dushanbe, the management of CJSC Bonki Rushdi Tojikiston decided to adopt the principles of Islamic banking.
BRT is hoping to become the leading platform in Tajikistan to provide customers with new banking products without charging interest. The bank is studying the experience in the implementation of Islamic banking principles in the banking systems of the European Union, the US, China, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
