Hamza K Bawazir, secretary-general of the General Council for Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions (CIBAFI), told the third Global Islamic Economy Summit in Istanbul on 4 June 2026 that the main obstacle to trade among Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states is trade friction rather than a lack of trade potential.
Bawazir was speaking on a panel on the second day of the summit, which was held under the patronage of the Turkish Presidency at Halkbank's headquarters in the Istanbul Financial Centre as part of the AlBaraka Summit series. The panel, moderated by Professor Mehmet Bulut, a board member of TÜBİTAK, examined how digital Islamic banking and takaful could help overcome the trade barriers facing OIC member states.
THREE MESSAGES
Bawazir set out three messages: that trade remains one of the strongest tools for economic development within the OIC; that Islamic finance is by its nature designed to support commerce and the real economy; and that digitalisation offers a historic opportunity to overcome barriers that have limited intra-OIC trade for decades. He cautioned that technology alone would not solve the problem, and that success would require coordination, standards, talent and institutional commitment.
He pointed to artificial intelligence as a tool for alternative credit assessment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), using transaction histories and payment behaviour, and to blockchain and smart contracts, which he said automate Sharia-compliant guarantees and transactions with transparent audit trails. He also said that harmonising Sharia standards was necessary for cross-border finance, as separate standards in each jurisdiction prevent it from scaling.
SME FINANCE AND DATA
Also on the panel, Dr Tarık Akın, head of the finance department at the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye Investment and Finance Office, said that trade follows finance, and that the financing obstacles facing SMEs needed to be resolved before high volumes of trade between countries could be expected. He identified technical soundness, political backing and the support of adequate institutions or human resources as the three pillars of a successful project.
Ekrem Arıkan, general manager of Türkiye's Central Registry Agency, described GEFAS, an information system for real-estate-based and emerging financial instruments which he said was launched three years ago to make real-estate-based financial products visible and accessible to other countries, in line with an OIC decision; the platform publishes links to the websites, exchanges and data platforms of all OIC member states.