Mr. Md. Arfan Ali, a career banker, is the former President & Managing Director of Bank Asia Limited. He started his career with Arab Bangladesh Bank Limited as a Probationary Officer in 1991. Later he joined Hanil Bank in 1996 and played key roles in setting up of its Dhaka Office. Mr. Arfan Ali joined Bank Asia in 1999 as Assistant Vice President before it started its operation. He played a vital role at the inception of launching formal operations of a newly established local bank. He acted as a key team player in Bank Asia for acquisition of the operations of two foreign banks in Bangladesh – the first of its kind – namely, Bank of Nova Scotia and Muslim Commercial Bank of Pakistan.

During his last 20 years’ tenure at Bank Asia, he discharged important responsibilities as Head of Treasury, Branch Manager, Chief Business Officer for SME and Retail, Deputy Managing Director for ICT and Channel Banking and Managing Director. Being an innovative banking leader Mr. Arfan pioneered and championed digital financial services (DFS) in Bangladesh with a view to serving a wide range of unbanked and underserved population across the country. He introduced a new meaningful and impactful model of Agent Banking and Micro-merchant that has been followed and replicated by the industry as a whole. Over the past decade, Bank Asia transformed into one of the country’s top progressive & profitable private commercial banks through his visionary leadership.

He used to teach Banking Management and Leadership Development at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. He was also the Secretary General of the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB), country’s apex forum of the Managing Directors and Senior Bankers of commercial banks. He sits in the Board of Advisory for country’s first of its kind financial inclusion innovation lab (FinLab BD) by a2i under the ICT Division. He is the current Chairperson of the SWIFT Members & Users Group of Bangladesh. Mr. Arfan, is an MBA from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Dhaka University, having more than 30(thirty) years of diverse experience in banking profession to his credit. He is a seasoned conference speaker attended a number of international around the globe.