Islamic finance is open to everyone. It is built on fairness, transparency and shared risk. Financing must be tied to something tangible, such as a business, a home, equipment or infrastructure.
Capital should help build something. It should create jobs, help businesses grow and move communities forward. It should not make money by keeping someone else trapped in debt.
That is why Al-Amanah has a much bigger role to play.
We are the country’s only Islamic bank. But being the only one is not enough. We must become easier to use and relevant to more Filipinos.
Over the next two years, I want Al-Amanah to become a real partner in national development, from the trade centers of Metro Manila to the growing economies of Mindanao.
Our mission goes beyond selling financial products. We are here to help more people take part in the economy. That starts with financial literacy.
Too many Filipinos earn money without ever being taught how to manage it, protect it or make it grow. Banking often feels like a language designed to confuse ordinary people. A bank should never benefit from a customer’s confusion.
We will help more Filipinos understand their financial choices, the risks they are taking and where their money is going.
We will also work to widen access to financing for micro, small and medium enterprises. MSMEs create jobs where people actually live. Yet many still struggle to borrow because they do not fit the usual requirements.
Women-led businesses face the same problem, even when they are already earning, hiring and growing. We need to look at what a business can become, not only at what its owner already has. Credit that reaches only those who are already comfortable is not financial inclusion — it is simply easier banking.
Mindanao will remain central to our work. The region has talent, resources and businesses ready to grow. What many communities still lack is financing that understands how local businesses operate and gives them room to grow.
Al-Amanah should be a real partner to Mindanao’s entrepreneurs, halal businesses and local industries. We should help connect them to financing, investors, government programs and markets outside the region.
Mindanao is not a side project. It is one of the country’s biggest economic opportunities.
At the same time, Islamic finance must reach beyond Mindanao.
We want to serve OFWs, young professionals, MSMEs and families across the country. We want to work with people looking for a fairer and more responsible way to borrow, save and invest.
Faith shaped the principles of Islamic finance. Fairness is what makes those principles useful to everyone.
We also want Al-Amanah to help bring more capital into national development. Sukuk can give the Philippines another way to fund infrastructure and projects linked to real assets. Strategic investments can support businesses that need funding and partners willing to give them time to grow.
These tools may still be unfamiliar to many Filipinos. Our job is to explain them clearly. No mystery. No financial alphabet soup. People should know where their money goes and what it helps build.
For Al-Amanah to do this well, the bank itself must change.
We need to make it easier to open an account, use our services and reach us. Customers should not have to lose an entire working day to complete one transaction.
A mobile app is no longer a bonus. Online account opening should no longer feel like a distant plan. Better customer service is the minimum people should expect.
But modernization is not simply about technology. A digital process that still confuses customers is not progress. A faster system that sends people in circles is still a bad system. The question is simple: did we make banking easier for the person using it?
We will also build stronger partnerships with fintech companies, private banks, business groups, universities and Islamic finance institutions.
Al-Amanah cannot build this future alone. One partnership that produces results will build more trust than ten polished announcements. The bank needs its own story. We will write it through the work.
In the next two years, I want people to see an Al-Amanah that is easier to use, more useful to entrepreneurs and more present in the country’s growth story.
It should be bank that puts capital behind businesses, an Islamic bank that helps communities build wealth without asking them to leave their values at the door, and one that proves finance can be fair and still be ambitious.
If, two years from now, people still think an Islamic bank is only for Muslims or only for Mindanao, then we will have failed to tell our story.
But if they see a bank that helps entrepreneurs grow, gives families more choices and strengthens communities, they will not simply be thinking differently about Al-Amanah. They will be thinking differently about what a bank can be.
Amenah “Mina” F. Pangandaman is the chair and CEO of Al Amanah Islamic Investment Bank of the Philippines. An economist and public servant, she has spent more than two decades in the Executive and Legislative branches and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. She made history as the first Muslim woman to serve as Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management. A proud Maranao and Mindanaoan, she has championed open government, public finance reform, and peacebuilding, earning the Gawad Kapayapaan Award. She also leads civic initiatives, including the Dugtong Buhay Movement, and serves as an Auxiliary Vice Admiral in the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary.
— Edited by Daxim L. Lucas
