Top Awards

Top Awards include: [1] Global Islamic Finance Leadership Award (Individual Category); [2] Global Islamic Finance Leadership Award (Country Category); and [3] Global Islamic Finance Leadership Award (Institutional Category). While the first leadership award in this category is awarded annually (see above), the other two categories are discretionary and are decided on the basis of a number of factors, including the choice of venue for the Awards Ceremony. So far, three countries have been honoured with the Country Awards, namely Malaysia (2014), Dubai (2017) and Djibouti (2022). The Institutional Award has so far been bestowed upon Islamic Development Bank (2015), KNEKS (2021) and DDCAP (2022).

Celebratory Awards

A number of celebratory awards are decided by the Awards Committee every year to recognise efforts and advocacy of institutions and individuals from outside the global Islamic financial services industry, mainly (but not necessarily) from the public sector. These include:

GIFA Championship Awards

In 2017, GIFA Championship Awards were introduced to acknowledge services of some leading personalities and entities, which have played the role of a catalyst in their respective jurisdictions. The following three Championship Awards were announced in 2017:

• GIFA Championship Award for the Republic of Tatarstan for its championship role to promote Islamic banking and finance in the Federation of Russia
• GIFA Championship Award for public sector support was presented to Mr. Bakhyt Sultanov, Minister of Finance, Republic of Kazakhstan
• GIFA Championship Award for regulatory support was presented to Ms. Elvira Nabuillina, Governor of Central Bank of Russia

Prestige Awards

Only a selected number of individuals are elected to receive the Prestige Awards, which recognise excellence in profession, leadership within an organisation and advocacy of Islamic banking and finance. Following are the main categories in the Prestige Awards:

• Islamic Finance Personality of the Year
• Islamic Banker of the Year
• GIFA CEO of the Year (started in 2016)
• Takaful CEO of the Year (started in 2017)

Dato' Wan Mohd Fadzmi Wan Othman (CEO of Agrobank, Malaysia) became the first GIFA CEO of the Year in 2016, followed by Jamal Saeed Bin Ghalaita (CEO of Emirate Islamic Bank) in 2017.

Datuk Abd Latiff Abu Bakar (CEO of Takaful Ikhlas) became the inaugural Takaful CEO of the Year in 2017.

GIFA Market Leadership Awards

In 2016, the Awards Committee decided to include a new category in the name of GIFA Market Leadership Awards to recognise the leadership role of institutions in particular sub-sectors of the industry. In the two years since their inception, the following institutions have been recognised for leadership in their respective sectors/sub-sectors:

Upcoming Personalities Awards

Over the years, Upcoimng Personalities Awards have increased in number and significance, as the Table below demonstrates.

Occasional Categories

In addition to regular categories, every year the Awards Committee may decide to present awards to institutions that do not fall under any other category. The winners so far have been listed in the Table below.