IslamicFinance.de

PT Asuransi Takaful Indonesia is searching for IDR1tr ($110m) of premiums next year, which would enact a whopping increase of 173.97% over 2011. In order to succeed the firm would have to add another 4,000 sales agents in addition to the 5,700 it already has.
PT Asuransi Takaful Indonesia also hopes to secure 500,000 customers through bancaTakaful channels and a further one million from corporate insurance.

MAYBANK Investment Bank Bhd (Maybank IB) wants to use the acquisition of Singapore’s banking franchise, Kim Eng Holdings, as a springboard to become a regional financial powerhouse.
The company now has operations in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia as well as in London and New York.
Maybank IB is focusing at this moment on establishing and expanding its line of business – investment banking and advisory, retail equities, institutional equities, derivatives and asset management – in its home markets, which are Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.

Allianz SE is searching to further develop its takaful, or Islam-compliant insurance, in the Asia-Pacific region, using its experience in Indonesia where it sees substantial market demand for comprehensive and affordable plans.
Kamesh Goyal, regional chief executive of Allianz Insurance Management in the Asia-Pacific, stated the fact that they are watching Malaysia very closely and would be ready to include takaful in their portfolio when the opportunity comes.

Indonesia's finance ministry want to speed up the rate at which it launches bonds in 2012 because of concern over a global economic downturn and will issue 55-60% of its target in the first half of the year.
According to Arga Samudro, a Jakarta-based analyst at Bahana Securities, the government was convinced that its bond issues in the year's first half would succeed because it thinks the global turmoil during that period would not be as bad as in 2008. He added that the bonds would attract foreign investors searching for high yields in emerging markets at a time of slow opportunities elsewhere.

INDONESIA'S central bank has launched a new regulation that grant the trade of sharia bonds for its reverse repo operations, effective starting Dec 1, in a move aimed at deepening the local sukuk market.
The rule has the purpose to absorbe excess liquidity from the financial system. Indonesian sharia banks can aquire at least 1 billion rupiah (US$110,700) of sukuk from the central bank, for which they will collect transaction margins.

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd is noticing opportunities for expansion in Indonesia and Bangladesh, which have sizeable Muslim populations and adequate Islamic banking regulatory policy and supporting infrastructure in place to speed up Shariah-based financing and banking operations.
Managing Director Datuk Seri Zukri Samat stated that although the two countries have been recognized as "very interesting countries" that fit into the bank's expansion plan, such plans would have to take into consideration the current global economic situation and its effect in this region.

Norton Rose has assists its reputation in the Islamic finance field after advising Indonesia on a $1 billion sukuk issuance, as the country attempts to raise its burgeoning currency reserves and targets the fastest economic growth since the Asian financial crisis of 1998.
The issuance, closed on Nov. 21, was build as a sukuk al ijara (sale and lease back) and has a maturity of seven years, with periodic distributions of four per cent per annum.

Indonesia sold $1 billion of sukuk at half the rate of its 2009 debut and more than two percentage points lower than a sale by Italy, sustaining the Asian nation’s claim for an investment-grade rating.
The 2018 dollar securities were sold at 4 %, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The nation launched $650 million worth of five-year sukuk in April 2009 at 8.8 %.
Indonesia’s currency reserves have more than doubled since 2009, while President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is aiming economic growth of 6.5 % this year, the fastest since the Asian financial crisis in 1998.

Indonesia's parliament authorized a long-delayed bill designing a new regulator to oversee a growing financial industry in Southeast Asia's largest economy but faced general skepticism on how effective the watchdog would be.
The new regulator, OJK or Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, will take over the supervision of banks, brokerages and insurance firms from the central bank and capital market watchdog Bapepam-LK begining with 2013.
The move to create the body came about to escape a repeat of the 1997/98 financial crisis, during which many Indonesians banks collapsed or were shut.

The first project-based Sukuk will be offered by Indonesia in an auction on Oct. 11. This act will raise the supply of Sharia instruments in the less-developed local Sukuk market.
The ministry will launch project-based Sukuk with maturities of six and 21 years, six-month Sharia T-bills, and 14-year and 25-year Sukuk, with a total target of 500 billion Indonesian rupiah (56 million Us dollars) in the last Sukuk auction this year.

The list following borrowers are anticipated to sell Islamic bonds: Indonesia, ABU DHABI NATIONAL ENERGY CO, QATAR INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC BANK (QIIK), TENAGA NASIONAL BHD. (TNB), MIDCITI RESOURCES SDN BHD., AL HILAL BANK, EMERY OLEOCHEMICALS GROUP, PT BANK MUAMALAT INDONESIA, INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC LIQUIDITY MANAGEMENT CORP., ACWA POWER INTERNATIONAL, ISLAMIC BANK OF THAILAND, PT BANK SYARIAH BRI, Russia, Senegal, TOURISM DEVELOPMENT & INVESTMENT CO., KUVEYT TURK KATILIM BANKASI AS and many others.

TENAGA NASIONAL BHD. (TNB), MIDCITI RESOURCES SDN Bhd., Indonesia, SAUDI ARAMCO TOTAL REFINING & PETROCHEMICAL CO., PALESTINE MONETARY AUTHORITY, AL HILAL BANK, KUALA LUMPUR KEPONG BHD. (KLK) , EMERY OLEOCHEMICALS GROUP, PT BANK MUAMALAT INDONESIA, PT BANK SYARIAH BRI, TOURISM DEVELOPMENT & INVESTMENT CO. and many others are expected to sell Islamic bonds, which consume asset returns to pay investors to accede with the religion’s ban on interest.

Indonesia aims to begin investor meetings next week for a global sukuk issue of about $1 billion.
Agus Martowardojo, the country's finance minister, stated that the government had met with arrangers of the Islamic-bond issue and would start visiting "global financial hubs" next week, raising the prospect of imminent issuance.

Indonesia calculates to sell dollar-denominated Islamic bonds by the end of December. This would be the second sale of the securities in two years. The country is looking to Persian Gulf investors to obtain the debt.
Rahmat Waluyanto, director general of the debt management office at the Ministry of Finance, stated that they are aming for Middle East investors to buy their global Islamic bonds.
Agus Martowardojo, Finance Minister, revealed that the government had planned to collect as much as $1 billion from global sukuk sales by the end of September.

It appears that US is supporting Indonesia's oldest Islamic bank, Bank Muamalat Indonesia. The US Embassy in Indonesia and the US Agency for International Development (USAid) signed an agreement with the bank to provide financial guarantees for $1.15bn in microloans to low-income women in Indonesia.

Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo stated that Indonesia has nominated three arrangers for the planned global sukuk, likely to be issued in the third quarter.
Unfortunetly, the names of these arrangers weren't given.

Indonesia is seen as a natural fit with Islamic banking, finance and insurance. Indonesian Vice President Boediono states that the mobilization of domestic savings through Islamic banking is expected to help drive the growth of the Indonesian banking industry.
Gov. Darmin Nasution of the Bank of Indonesia predicted Islamic banking deposits in Indonesia to grow steadily over the next few years.

Indonesia is expected to to have a natural fit with Islamic banking, finance and insurance, especially because of the mobilization of domestic savings through Islamic banking.
But it seems that the latest statistics on the sector demonstrate that Indonesia has a long way to go in emulating the success of its neighbor, Malaysia.
For Indonesia, the global sukuk market in particular evolved into an alternative source of funding for infrastructure and other investments. The latest incursion of the Indonesian Ministry of Finance into the Islamic capital market is planned for August 2011 when the government is due to launch 1 trillion rupiah of debut Islamic treasury bills with a six-month tenor.

An official stated that the Jakarta Futures Exchange (JFX) will launch sharia-compliant commodity contracts in September.
Bihar Sakti Wibowo, a director at JFX, added that both Indonesia's future trading regulatory body and National Sharia Council at Indonesian Ulema Association (MUI) have approved this new scheme.

Shariah loans increased by almost half in the first six months of the year. The reason was the rapid expansion of Shariah banks in Indonesia.
Mulya Siregar, director of Shariah banking at Bank Indonesia, stated that Shariah loans rose 49 percent to Rp 83 trillion ($9.8 billion) through June, in comparison with the same period last year.