Five months after his appointment as CEO of the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), Ayman Amin Sejiny shares with MARC ROUSSOT his belief in the power of fintech to support the development of SMEs and his keenness to use Sukuk as a tool to unlock the financial potential of fixed assets.
“I am very much focused on fintech because I think that it is the future of the banking and financial world. We definitely want to make sure that we will further enhance it and support SME projects that are related to fintech, and support banks that are focused on fintech and find ways to expand the financial technology in the world that we are in and especially when it helps the inclusion of people that are in need,” says Ayman.
Besides Yemen’s fintech-based BRAVE program which aims to enhance the resilience of SMEs in Yemen in vital sectors against the impact of the ongoing protracted conflict, the ICD is also working with a Tunisian institution on an SME crowdfunding project.
“My key point is to be an enabler for SMEs and the member countries that we cover especially when they have UN Sustainable Development Goals angles. At the same time, I would like to issue Sukuk for institutions that are in the member countries whereby it would unleash, as I say, fixed assets into cash that can be reutilized again in other projects,” details Ayman.
The ICD is currently working on two Sukuk issuances in North Africa, one in the GCC and another one in the Far East.
“I am right now looking at two different projects that are considered green Sukuk, one is for a solar project and another one is related to agriculture,” reveals Ayman who adds that the papers to be issued in Africa are worth hundreds of millions of US dollars.
This article first appeared in IFN Volume 16 Issue 04 on the 30th of January 2019
MARC ROUSSOT 