BankIslami and its digital banking platform aik have partnered with Paklaunch for the eighth edition of UNConference 26, a two-day summit that brought together a curated group of founders, investors, and policymakers to examine the trajectory of Pakistan’s startup ecosystem with a particular focus on fintech, artificial intelligence, and digital investment trends. The event served as a platform for substantive dialogue between Pakistan’s entrepreneurial community and the financial institutions that are increasingly being called upon to provide the infrastructure and tools that early-stage and growth-stage companies need to operate and scale.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Rizwan Ata, President and Chief Executive Officer of BankIslami, framed digital adoption as the defining challenge and opportunity facing Pakistan’s financial sector at this moment. He noted that in 2025 BankIslami launched aik as Pakistan’s first Islamic digital banking platform, describing it as an effort to bridge the institution’s mission of promoting Shariah-compliant finance with modern technology at the mass market level. Ata argued that sustainable growth and scale in any sector cannot happen in isolation and must be driven by technology-led innovation, a perspective that informed BankIslami’s decision to align itself with an event focused on the intersection of entrepreneurship and digital finance. Aly Fahd, Founder of Paklaunch, reflected on the significance of the partnership by describing Paklaunch’s core mission as building meaningful connections between Pakistan’s entrepreneurial talent and global capital, expertise, and opportunity, and said that partnerships with institutions such as BankIslami and aik reflect a shared commitment to giving founders access to the right financial infrastructure and digital tools they need to grow.
One of the event’s central sessions was a panel discussion on digital platforms and innovation, during which Ashfaque Ahmed, Chief Officer of aik, addressed the practical shift toward digital-native financial services as a tool for the next generation of Pakistani founders. Ahmed said aik’s focus is on moving beyond traditional banking hurdles by creating a digital-first experience that mirrors the speed and agility of the startups the platform is designed to serve, with the goal of making Shariah-compliant banking a seamless enabler of growth rather than an additional layer of administrative complexity. The event reinforced a broader theme that has been gaining traction across Pakistan’s financial and technology sectors: that the maturity of the startup ecosystem is directly tied to the availability of inclusive, accessible, and digitally delivered financial tools, and that collaboration between traditional financial institutions and technology-driven platforms is essential to making those tools available to founders and underserved segments of the population at scale.
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