IslamicFinance.de

After outsourcing its information technology (IT) infrastructure for about five years, Syarikat Takaful Malaysia has decided to bring it back inhouse. The company has adopted Microsoft System Center 2012 to manage its IT infrastructure and end-user computing. It said that the decision to go inhouse has shown immediate benefits, and it has been experiencing a 40 per cent improvement in response time and 27 per cent in cost reduction. Takaful’s adoption of Microsoft System Center was mainly helped by system integrator Redynamics Asia System Management. The cost savings the company achieved from going inhouse can now be used to help the company expand into other areas.

The International Islamic Liquidity Management expanded its sukuk issuance programme today by auctioning US$860 million (RM2.85 billion) of three-month Islamic bonds at a yield of 0.55635 per cent. The issue brings the total amount of the IILM’s outstanding sukuk to US$1.35 billion. Its programme, launched last year, envisages issuance increasing eventually to as much as US$2 billion. The newest issue was sold to nine primary dealers from Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Since the programme’s launch, primary dealers have held on to the IILM instruments after auctions and there has been little if any secondary market trade in them.

DRB–Hicom has yet to finalise the new party for its divestment of a 30 per cent stake in its banking unit, Bank Muamalat Malaysia. The dilution of the stake in the country’s third largest Islamic lender has been a prolonged process as the conglomerate is looking into a strategic partnership or an exercise that could add value and increase the bank’s penetration into the Islamic financial business in Malaysia. It was reported earlier that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had mandated DRB-Hicom to dilute some of its 70 per cent stake in Bank Muamalat. It was also reported that DRB-Hicom had negotiated with Affin Holdings on a potential acquisition but talks were called off due to pricing issues. The bank remains sidelined as it currently has no new products to introduce or new branches to launch.