Habib Metro SIRAT Islamic Banking

Written & reviewed by Dildar Hussain — 10+ years in Pakistani banking, BS Banking & Finance (NUML University)

SIRAT isn't a separate bank — it's HabibMetro's own Islamic banking brand, running through 243 dedicated Islamic Banking Branches plus 311 Islamic windows tucked inside conventional branches, across the full 229-city network as it stood on 31 December 2025.

What SIRAT Offers

Pretty much everything on the conventional side has a SIRAT equivalent: current and savings accounts built on Islamic modes of finance, term-deposit alternatives, and Islamic financing products. Overseas Pakistanis get their own Islamic Roshan Digital Account too, with Islamic Naya Pakistan Certificates and Habib Islamic Investment Certificates on the investment side, alongside the Shariah-compliant deposit accounts.

SIRAT Financing Products

Rather than one generic "Islamic loan," SIRAT names each financing mode by its actual Shariah structure — worth knowing the names if you're comparing against a conventional facility:

SIRAT also runs dedicated account variants beyond the standard current and savings lineup — including a SIRAT Ladies Account for women's banking needs and a SIRAT Privilege 55+ Account for senior customers, alongside SIRAT@Work for organizational payroll banking.

How SIRAT Profit Actually Works

This is where SIRAT genuinely differs from a conventional savings account, and it's worth understanding before you assume "profit rate" means the same thing as "interest rate." SIRAT deposits operate on Mudarabah — depositors (Rab-ul-Maal) contribute funds to a pool that the bank (as Mudarib) invests in Shariah-compliant business activities. Profit isn't a fixed number the bank sets in advance; it's the actual net income the pool earns, distributed between the bank and depositors according to a pre-agreed profit-sharing ratio. Within that, different account types and balance tiers get different "weightages" — a larger weightage means a bigger slice of the pool's distributable profit for that tier. HabibMetro publishes these weightages and the resulting indicative profit rates periodically (typically monthly), and the actual number moves with how the underlying pool performs — not with SBP's policy rate the way conventional PLS accounts are influenced.

The other genuine difference: Mudarabah is, in principle, a profit-and-loss sharing structure. If the pool records a loss rather than a profit, that loss is meant to be shared among depositors in proportion to their investment — this is a structural feature of Islamic finance, not a HabibMetro-specific risk. In practice, banks manage pools conservatively and losses on standard deposit pools are rare, but it's a meaningful conceptual difference from a conventional account, where your principal is never at risk from the bank's investment performance. If this distinction matters to your decision, ask your SIRAT branch how the specific pool you're joining has performed historically.

Mudarabah profit-sharing mechanism confirmed from HabibMetro's official SIRAT product pages and general Islamic banking profit-and-loss-sharing principles as documented by the State Bank of Pakistan's Islamic banking framework.

Recognition

SIRAT's picked up recognition along the way too — "Upcoming Islamic Banking Window" at the Global Islamic Finance Awards in 2016, then "Best Islamic Banking Brand" in both 2020 and 2021. Worth noting given HabibMetro's core reputation is built on conventional trade finance, not Islamic banking — this is a segment that's genuinely grown into its own.

Branch figures and award recognition confirmed from HabibMetro’s audited FY2025 Annual Report and official corporate communications.

Shariah Board

A dedicated Shariah Board oversees the whole thing, chaired by Tan Sri Dr. Mohd. Daud Bakar — a Malaysian scholar with a resume that includes chairing Shariah advisory councils at Malaysia's central bank, its Securities Commission, and the Astana International Financial Centre, so this isn't a token appointment. Mufti Abdul Sattar Laghari sits on the Board too, alongside Resident Shariah Board Member Mufti Khawaja Noor ul Hassan. Twice a year, HabibMetro's Board of Directors sits down with the Shariah Board for a full compliance briefing, which then gets published in the Annual Report.

Shariah Board composition confirmed from HabibMetro’s audited FY2025 Annual Report.

Deposit safety works the same way here as on the conventional side, just through a Shariah-compliant mechanism: SIRAT deposits are covered by the Deposit Protection Waqf, the Islamic-banking equivalent of the Deposit Protection Corporation's standard guarantee — see our Account Opening & Cards page for the coverage amount and how it works.

How SIRAT Fits Into HabibMetro

Since SIRAT runs under the same license and corporate structure as conventional HABIBMETRO, you're not calling a different number — 111-1-HABIB (42242) covers both, and SIRAT branches show up on the same locator as everything else. If you specifically want Shariah-compliant banking, it's worth confirming with the branch or call center whether you're looking at a full Islamic branch or just a window inside a conventional one, since the product range can differ slightly between the two.

Common Questions

Official Sources & Last Verified

Every figure, product detail, and claim on this page traces back to HabibMetro's own official disclosures, re-checked at the time this page was last updated, September 2026. Bank terms, rates, and features do change; if you find something here that no longer matches habibmetro.com, that's worth telling us, and we'll correct it.

Primary sources: State Bank of Pakistan's Islamic banking framework. Last verified September 2026.

Good For

• Customers who specifically want Shariah-compliant banking from HabibMetro
• Understanding how large HabibMetro’s Islamic branch network actually is
• Overseas Pakistanis looking for an Islamic Roshan Digital Account
• Confirming SIRAT is a HabibMetro brand, not a separate bank

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For independent verification, see State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan Stock Exchange, Habib Bank AG Zurich.