Faysal Bank Limited has been named Best Bank of the Year 2025 in the mid-sized banks category at the 23rd Annual Excellence Awards organised by CFA Society Pakistan, adding another major honour to the record of one of the country’s leading Islamic banks. The award places Faysal Bank among the standout performers in a banking sector that is changing fast, as customers move steadily towards digital services and Shariah-compliant finance, and it recognises a year in which the bank combined steady growth with a clear focus on its customers.
The bank, which now operates 900 branches across Pakistan, has spent recent years building a model that combines the reach of a traditional branch bank with the speed of modern digital banking, all within a fully Islamic framework. From 1 January 2023, it has operated entirely under an Islamic banking licence issued by the State Bank of Pakistan, after surrendering its conventional licence and converting every branch and product to Shariah-compliant structures. Its digital platform, Faysal DigiBank, now sits at the centre of how many customers manage their money, from sending payments through the State Bank’s Raast system to paying bills online.
Speaking after the award, Faysal Bank President and Chief Executive Officer Yousaf Hussain described the honour as a reflection of the trust placed in the bank by its customers and the dedication of its people. He said the award belonged as much to the customers who bank with Faysal and to the teams who serve them every day as it did to the institution itself. The tone was deliberately modest, but the message was clear: in a competitive market, trust is earned slowly, and it is a bank’s most valuable asset.
The award comes from one of the most respected names in Pakistan’s financial community. CFA Society Pakistan is the local member society of CFA Institute, the global association for investment professionals, and its Annual Excellence Awards are a familiar fixture in the country’s financial calendar. Each year, they recognise institutions, companies and professionals whose performance stands out, whether through strong results, sound governance, innovation or service to customers. For a mid-sized bank, winning the best bank title in its category is a significant statement, because it means standing out in the eyes of judges drawn from across the finance industry, not only against banks of a similar size.
This year’s ceremony, the 23rd in the series, was held on 2 November 2026, and it recognised winners across a wide range of categories, from digital banking and gender diversity to corporate performance. Banks are no longer judged only on their balance sheets, but also on how well they serve women in the workplace, how far they have taken their digital services, and how responsibly they report on environmental and social issues. Against that background, a best bank award carries particular weight, because it speaks to the whole institution rather than to a single product or campaign.
Faysal Bank’s win also fits into a much larger shift across Pakistan’s banking system. According to the State Bank of Pakistan’s Islamic Banking Bulletin, Islamic banking assets reached Rs14.467 trillion by the end of December 2025, up from Rs11.070 trillion a year earlier, and now account for 22.9 per cent of total banking industry assets. Deposits held by Islamic banking institutions rose to Rs11.037 trillion, or 27.8 per cent of all deposits, while Islamic financing made up 38.1 per cent of total financing. By the end of 2025, Pakistan had 7,562 full-fledged Islamic banking branches and 2,931 Islamic banking windows, about 42 per cent of the total network, with Faysal Bank’s 900 branches placing it firmly among the leaders.
The award also follows other recent honours. In November 2025, Faysal Bank was named Pakistan’s Best Bank in the mid-sized category at the 10th Pakistan Banking Awards, organised by Dawn Media Group with the National Institute of Banking and Finance and A.F. Ferguson and Company. That earlier award praised its financial performance, digital expansion and commitment to inclusive, Shariah-compliant solutions in very similar terms. Winning similar titles from two different awarding bodies within a year suggests its progress is being noticed consistently, and it gives the bank a public benchmark against which customers and competitors will now measure it.
What matters most is what the award means for customers in practice. Awards do not, by themselves, make a bank better, but they signal where an institution is heading. For Faysal Bank’s customers, the test will be whether it keeps improving the everyday experience: branches that are easy to reach, digital services that work reliably, and financing that is fair and transparent. Competition is intensifying, from other Islamic banks and from conventional banks expanding their own Islamic windows, and customers now compare services, fees and quality with a few taps on a phone. In that environment, the 2025 award is best seen as a milestone rather than a destination: recognition of how far the bank has come since its conversion, and a reminder of the standard it must maintain to keep its customers’ trust.
