Pakistan picks central bank veteran Jameel Ahmad as new governor

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan named Jameel Ahmad, a deputy governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), as the central bank’s new governor on Friday, appointing him for a five-year term.

The Pakistani central bank had been without a full-time governor since May and one of Ahmad’s first tasks will be to chair a monetary policy meeting to consider its policy rate.

Ahmad’s career spans more than 30 years in various positions at the State Bank of Pakistan and the Saudi Central Bank, the country’s central bank said in a profile on its website.

Prior to his appointment as deputy governor of the Pakistani central bank in 2018, he was executive director of its Banking Supervision and Financial Stability Group.

As a deputy SBP governor, Ahmad played an instrumental role in the digitisation of banking and payments as well in the enabling of financial technology services, the bank said.

(Reporting by Syed Raza Hassan; writing by Gibran Peshimam; editing by Mark Heinrich and Alexander Smith)