Pakistan’s first Shariah-compliant Open Banking Platform is now here: aik by BankIslami has launched aik Connect, the country’sfirs t Shariah-compliant Open Banking and Banking-as-a-Service gateway. The platform does away with the old way of onboarding partners, which typically meant weeks of back-and-forth between legal, business and technical teams, and instead makes the process happen through one self-serve digital flow.
Here’s how it works in practice: a fintech, merchant or aggregator signs up on the portal, fills in their company details, signs their NDA digitally right there in the same session, and gets scoped API access once approved. Once they are in, partners have a full catalogue of Shariah-compliant APIs to build with, covering digital account opening, QR payments, fund transfers, instant Raast transfers, bill payments, and balance and transaction inquiries, capabilities that would normally take months of negotiation and separate integration work to piece together.
How aik Connect Works and What It Offers
“This isn’t just a feature release, it’s a shift in how partners experience aik,” said Ashfaque Ahmed, Chief Officer of aik by BankIslami. He added, “What used to take days of coordination now happens in minutes. It’s a direct step toward our vision of aik Connect becoming the go-to Open Banking gateway for banks, fintechs and merchants across Pakistan.”
Kashif Ali, Chief Product Officer of aik by BankIslami, commented, “We built aik Connect around one question, how fast can we get a partner from interest to a working integration? Once you frame it that way, you start stripping out every bit of friction that’s slowed Open Banking down in this market.” He added that Shariah compliance was not bolted on afterward, and that every API and every workflow was designed to meet that standard from the start, so partners should not have to choose between moving fast and staying compliant.
Security, National Impact and What Comes Next
aik Connect’s APIs sit directly on the State Bank of Pakistan’s Raast rail, so every partner that plugs in adds to a more connected, instant-payments ecosystem for the whole country. Making that connectivity self-serve, and Shariah-compliant from the ground up, lines up with two things the State Bank has been pushing for at a national level: quicker adoption of Open Banking, and parity for Islamic finance institutions when it comes to digital infrastructure.
Instead of every bank, fintech and merchant negotiating one-off integrations, aik Connect gives Pakistan’s financial sector something to build on collectively, a shared foundation that other industries, from digital lending to government disbursements, can tap into rather than recreate from scratch. Speed has not come at the expense of security either. Every connection into aik Connect is encrypted, and access credentials are managed under strict, bank-grade controls, with the security team regularly testing the platform for vulnerabilities and running real-world attack simulations. Every partner is verified and approved before going live, and the system is monitored around the clock in line with established international security standards for banking and open APIs. With aik Connect, aik by BankIslami is doubling down on its commitment to open, trusted digital infrastructure for Pakistan’s financial sector, in line with BankIslami’s broader mission of promoting ethical, accessible and technology-driven Shariah-compliant financial solutions across the country. As more banks and fintechs move toward Open Banking, Pakistan’s Islamic finance sector now has infrastructure built specifically to keep pace with that shift without compromising on Shariah compliance. The launch positions aik as a key piece of digital financial infrastructure for banks, fintechs and merchants looking to grow within Pakistan’s expanding digital economy. With this launch, Pakistan’s Islamic banking sector gains a modern, self-serve gateway built to match the pace of the country’s fast-growing digital finance ecosystem.
