Christos Papadopoulos has been appointed as chairman of Standard Chartered’s Islamic banking division.

He is the bank’s regional CEO for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan but will take on the Islamic banking business in addition to his current position and continue to be based in Dubai.

“Islamic finance is an integral part of the business at Standard Chartered and we are seeing growing demand from clients in many of our markets, particularly across Asia and the Middle East,” says Viswanathan Shankar, CEO of Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Americas.

Papadopoulos agrees: “We are well positioned to participate in the continued growth of the industry.”

Standard Chartered launched its Islamic finance business, branded Saadiq, in 2003.