The freshly designed interest-free Hijra Bank S.C. in Ethiopia has tasted core success by launching live effectively their dream iMAL Islamic core banking platform on September 4th, 2021, only a month post signing with Path Solutions, the only AAOIFI-certified financial technology firm.
Hijra Bank has profited from enhanced project timelines which have tremendously compacted the budget for its deployment. It is the initial Ethiopian bank to device the stated platform.
Following the legislation of the interest-free banking proclamation, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) had passed their nod to Hijra Bank, the second full-fledged interest-free bank in the country to fully become operational in 2020.
At that time, Mukemil Bedru, the board’s Chairperson approved the dearth of skilled personnel and the procurement of Sharia-based core banking technology as most core banking systems available in the market are not designed to accommodate Islamic banking.
“There are only a handful of companies providing core banking systems specifically designed as per the Sharia law”, he stated. Post a stringent selection process, the bank finally nominated iMAL from Path Solutions.
A core factor in their decision to hand-pick the future-generation iMAL is a blend of Sharia compliance, feature-rich functionality and affordability.
“We worked closely with Path Solutions’ agile and passionate team to go live in record time. We are proud to be partnering with them to reshape the Ethiopian banking landscape, and to working towards Hijra Bank’s vision to become the country’s leading interest-free bank”, Bedru commented.
“Our bank is now well positioned to leverage technology innovation to drive operational efficiencies and introduce new products and services to market quickly. Bringing the community interest-free banking products and services will have a positive contribution toward the country’s economy and the entire society”.
“Hijra Bank has set a very challenging task to go live within one calendar month from the start of the project, and we are pleased to announce that the bank has gone live successfully within exactly one month from kickoff. The speed with which the bank has reached go live is testament to Hijra’s leadership team managing flowless execution, to our team’s know-how, capabilities and experience, and to the platform’s elasticity and flexibility, and it’s one of the main reasons why Hijra Bank chose iMAL as their Sharia-compliant software platform”, stated Mohammed Kateeb, Path Solutions’ Group Chairman & CEO.
“Hijra Bank is now empowered to not only realize its growth strategy in a cost-effective way, but also to bring cutting-edge interest-free banking services to the 25 million Muslims in the country”, he further added.
Path Solutions has a global reputation for being the robust, innovative interest-free banking software, fast executions collectively shared with widespread existence and commitment to the African continent. This partially do remote execution have empowered Hijra Bank to commence its doors to clients in the shortest possible time of only one month.
