The Second Meeting of the OIC Central Banks Working Groups, namely “OIC Economic Outlook Working Group” and “Financial Inclusion Working Group”, was held on 17-18 June 2019 in Istanbul, Turkey. The Meeting was hosted by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.

The meeting brought together delegations from central banks of OIC Member States, including representatives of international organizations and OIC institutions, to discuss the global economic and financial trends, the OIC Vulnerability Index, as well as microcredit and Fintech in Islamic finance.

Both working groups are expected to prepare their reports and provide recommendations on emerging challenges in related areas for the consideration and further elaboration by the upcoming OIC-COMCEC Member States’ Central Banks Forum, which will be held on September 22-24, 2019.

SESRIC contributed to the meeting by presenting recent economic developments in OIC countries. The delegates recognised the role of SESRIC in monitoring and evaluating the OIC economies.

Moreover, country representatives shared their best practices and underlined the significant progress the Islamic Finance has made in recent year, emphasising that the process can be improved by investing in digital finance, making the Islamic financing faster, cheaper and more inclusive.