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Rabat – Bahrain-based Al Baraka Banking Group will set up a branch of its Islamic financial intuition in Morocco in 2016.

After receiving approval from Morocco’s central bank, Al Baraka Banking Group is willing to invest in the Moroccan Islamic banking sector next year.

CEO Adnan Ahmed Yousif told TR Zawya that, “The new bank will be equally owned by Al Baraka and Banque Marcaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE), and will start operations in the first quarter of 2016.”

The CEO added that they are planning to open twenty branches all over the kingdom in the first five years of operating in Morocco.

“Morocco was one of the last markets to approve Islamic banking, and the Moroccan market is large, promising and organized in terms of legislation, the legal and banking system,” Yousif said.

In November 2014, after months of delay, the Moroccan House of Representatives adopted a bill regulating Islamic finance and sukuk issues.

Abdul Latif Aljwahiri, the governor of Bank-Al-Maghrib, Morocco’s central bank, said in a press conference that Islamic Banks will start doing business in Morocco in early 2016.

The governor of Bank-Al-Maghrib said that Morocco’s central bank has received 15 requests from foreign financial intuitions which are compliant with the principles of the Islamic Sharia (law), to operate in Morocco.

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