IslamicFinance.de

Together with Fintech Indonesia Association, Deloitte released the Fintech Survey 2016 at the Indonesia Fintech Festival & Conference 2016. Conducted between June to August 2016, the survey interviewed 70 respondents from various Indonesian fintech companies. 27 different types of fintech companies participated in the survey. All of them shared three major concerns. A great number of fintech players agreed that the current regulatory process is "not so clear." Another pressing matter faced by Indonesian fintech players is talent shortage. The third concern is the local market’s low levels of financial education. Ironically, this problem happens not only among members of the general public but also among players in the conventional finance industry.

In #Indonesia the National Police have warned the public to be on guard against fraudulent investment companies. Criminal Investigation Department director Agung Setya said investors who understood investment often fell prey to fraudsters because of greed, while other were lured by religious symbols and public figures. He cited as an example the 2007 Gama Smart Karya Utama case and the 2012 Langit Biru cooperative case, in which the founders claimed to be spiritual leaders. Data show that fraudulent investments lead to billions of rupiah in losses per year. In 2007, losses amounted to Rp 16.13 trillion (US$1.21 billion), but decreased to Rp 604 billion in 2008. In 2011 and 2012, losses rose to Rp 68.62 trillion and Rp 10.22 trillion, respectively, but declined to Rp 235 billion (2014) and 285 billion (2015).

Indonesia is all set to host the Indonesia Fintech Festival & Conference 2016 (IFFC 2016). The event is organised by Indonesia Financial Services Authority (OJK) in association with Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) and will be held in Tangerang from August 29 to 30. IFFC 2016 will focus on several issues related to fintech, including financial inclusion. A series of workshops and conferences for fintech players will be conducted. Also, a startup competition will take place as part of the event. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will be special guests. According to the organising committee, up to 2,000 tickets have been sold so far.

Islamic finance is making further inroads in agricultural sectors globally. The trend is increasingly adopted in Central and Westerns Asian countries, in Southeast Asia and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Firstly, the impact of Islamic finance can be higher than that of other financial products due to its asset-based structure. It can be applied in many fields, starting from the purchase of farming machines and equipment, seeds and pesticides, warehouses, as well as in the dairy, livestock and fishery sectors. Ijara contracts can be used for leasing or renting farm machines and other equipment. Other structures such as musharaka or mudaraba can be used for long-term developments such as rural housing, reforestation or irrigation. Secondly, Islamic finance can help broaden financial inclusion by establishing cooperatives or partnership-based financing structures. In Pakistan the state bank has now issued guidelines on Islamic agricultural finance. In Indonesia, the government has launched a new national master plan and has explicitly included agriculture as a field for Islamic finance.

Dr. Bambang Permadi Soemantri Brodjonegoro, Indonesia’s former Finance Minister and current Minister of National Development Planning, discusses the recent tax amnesty legislation and current economic prospects for Indonesia. Hosting the recent 12th World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in Jakarta aims to promote Indonesia to the Muslim community, sending a message that Indonesia is a reliable economy with a lot of potential. The WIEF tries to develop Islamic finance that is more inclusive. Indonesia wants to focus on Islamic microfinance and on Muslim-friendly tourism. Beyond tourism, Muslim fashion is a sector that already has a huge market and will be increasingly important for Indonesia.

The Indonesian government has launched a national master plan to develop its Islamic finance industry. Indonesian Islamic banks hold roughly 5% of total banking assets, compared with more than 20% in neighbouring Malaysia. According to Farrukh Raza, managing director of IFAAS, an Islamic finance consultancy which designed the 10-year master plan, the government would increase its use of Islamic debt instruments to as much as 50% of total issuance in 10 years time. Indonesia's pilgrims' fund would also see the establishment of a dedicated asset management arm to implement a more rigorous investment policy and attract external fund managers.

Fitch Ratings #Indonesia has assigned National Long-Term Ratings of 'AAA(idn)' to Indosat Ooredoo's IDR 3,172 bn senior unsecured bonds and IDR 288 bn sukuk ijarah issues. The issues are launched from Indosat Ooredoo's IDR 9 trn bond programme and IDR 1 trn sukuk ijarah programme. Indosat Ooredoo will use the issue proceeds to refinance its existing rupiah debt, and to fund licence fees. The sukuk rating is at the same level as Indosat Ooredoo's National Long-Term Rating of 'AAA(idn)'. Fitch's rating for the certificates reflects the agency's belief that Indosat Ooredoo would stand behind its obligations.

Inflows in debt vehicles issued by Muslim Southeast Asian nations have increased in the recent past. Malaysia and Indonesia are greatly benefiting from their current monetary easing policies, relaxed tax policies and government infrastructure spending programs. The Pan-Borneo Highway project adds to other sukuk issuances, among them a $1.3bn-offer by Sarawak Hidro, the state-owned developer of Malaysia’s biggest hydropower project, also on Borneo Island. Other infrastructure sukuk in the queue are a $440mn-issuance for the bridge connecting Peninsular Malaysia with Penang island and a $892mn-issuance for a highway network. Indonesia’s government is also enlarging the scope of sukuk-backed investment in roads and railways. However, the state budget is only capable of contributing 30%, which means that a large number of future issuances can be expected, with its uptake spurred by generous tax incentives.

Executives of Indonesian and Malaysian stock markets signed on Tuesday a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the establishment of a World Sharia Stock Market Center. Signing of the document was conducted by Indonesia Stock Exchange President Director Tito Sulistio and his Malaysian counterpart Tajuddin Bin Atan. The planned center aims to develop Sharia products and portfolios for stock markets, but also to train human resources to become competent, professional and skillful persons in the industry. Global Sharia financial market was estimated to expand to USD 3.24 trillion by 2020.

Indonesia's sukuk market is thriving. The Southeast Asian nation raised US$2.5 billion from its sale of US dollar Islamic bonds in March, snatching orders for over three times the amount offered. It was the biggest ever Asian US dollar sukuk offering. Indonesia’s government is speeding up investment in roads and railways amid pressure from President Joko Widodo. Even with a reduced allocation this year, Indonesia’s Public Works Ministry has spent a bigger proportion of its budget in the first half compared with 2015.

In #Indonesia deposit insurance is an integral part of the financial fractional-reserve banking system. This structure was put into place twelve years ago through the enactment of the Indonesia Deposit Insurance Act 2004. Islamic deposit insurance has become more relevant of late due to the worldwide development of Islamic finance. Related to the implementation of the fractional banking reserve system in Islamic banking institutions (IBIs), there are issues to do with the reserve structure that is incompatible with sharia principles. Deposit insurance does involve the exchange of money for money and the exchange occurs with different values and at different times. Hence, some sharia scholars would argue that it is an interest-based transaction and therefore non-permissible.

In #Indonesia the Islamic banks’ market share has remained below 5% for the last several years, despite having existed since the 1990s. Now the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry is mulling a proposal to allow Islamic lender subsidiaries owned by the four state-run banks to be merged into two new entities. The ministry’s assistant Gatot Trihargo said the state would still control the two new sharia lenders as majority shareholders. He added that at least two of the four sharia banks should be merged in order to become a BUKU III lender, which has capital between Rp 5 trillion and Rp 30 trillion. Bank Aceh, a regional development bank, is currently in the process of being converted into an Islamic lender, while Bank Syariah Mandiri is seeking strategic investors from the Middle East.

Indonesia's Islamic bond yields have fallen faster than Malaysia's in the past three months, as the nation's higher-yielding notes do better at attracting foreign investors. Yields on rupiah sukuk due 2019 slid 37 basis points in the period, compared with 24 basis points for equivalent paper in Malaysia. Indonesia's three-year Islamic bonds pay 7.16%, while those in Malaysia yield 3.26%. Indonesian bonds are the best performers in South-east Asia this year after the government passed a tax amnesty bill on undeclared income held overseas. Bank Negara Malaysia lowered borrowing costs for oil, as well as its projection for consumer prices to 2%-3% in 2016, from 2.5%-3.5 %. Currently both nation's currencies are seeing a revival.

Bank Muamalat Indonesia was appointed as the National Zakat Collector Agency through its affiliation called Baitulmaal Muamalat (BMM). Bank Muamalat has distributed assistance fund to 4,500 orphans across Indonesia, which amounts to Rp1.35 billion (US$100,000) worth of zakat collected by BMM. The fund is distributed through a number of programs, namely community empowerment programs, like Orphan Kafala and educational programs, like the Islamic Solidarity School (ISS). The fund is also distributed through the B-Smart program that provides scholarships for accomplished students, and the Fi Sabilillah program that provides scholarships for orphans finishing their undergraduate studies.

A few weeks ago we saw the launch of a Sharia-compliant mobile phone-based loan service. The new service, called Trust Network Finance was rolled out by Allianz in Indonesia. TNF reflects the big opportunities in Indonesia for mobile money and for Sharia-compliant services.
Although roughly 60% of Indonesians have a mobile phone, only 3% of the population is reportedly aware of mobile money. Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, and Sharia-compliant finance has grown over the past few decades in the country; however by the end of 2016 Islamic financial institutions in Indonesia are only expected to hold 5% of the nation’s total banking assets.
Of the country’s roughly 250 million citizens, 60% are unbanked. It’s estimated that there are 50 million MSMEs in Indonesia, which make up about 97% of the country’s enterprises.

Issuance of Sukuk is up all around the world, up on last year, due to current economic factors and the goodwill for the instrument among global investors
The good news on the Sukuk front is continuing. The proportion of Sukuk bond issuance hit a record in the first quarter of 2016 in the main markets for this form of finance, said Fitch Ratings. According to Fitch’s data, there is a clear upwards trend in use of Shari'ah-compliant borrowing as more countries create legal frameworks to support issuance and as issuers try to attract a broader investor base, including Islamic finance investors.
Total new Sukuk issuance in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore and Pakistan was around $11.1 billion in the first quarter of 2016, with a maturity of 18 months. Issuance was up 22% from the fourth quarter of 2015 and 21% from a year earlier, while non-Sukuk bond issuance of $17.1 billion was down 23% quarter on quarter and 45% year on year. Sukuk represented 39.3% of total bond and Sukuk issuance in these countries during the quarter—the highest proportion in the past eight years.

Highlights and Performance
Bloomberg Malaysia Sukuk
Bloomberg Malaysia Sukuk Ex-MYR Total Return and Dow Jones Sukuk Total Return indices ended relatively flat at 103.9 (+0.02%) and 159.8 +0.01%) respectively, with yields tightened marginally by 0.6bps to 2.470%. Combined with the Fed‘s dovish meeting (June 15), uncertainty over the Brexit referendum jitters (June 23) and mixed signals from China over slowing economy bring the risk-adverse sentiment. The top performers over the week were INDOIS 3/26 and GS 9/19, which moved -11bps to -13bps; while the underperformers were dominated by banking papers — EIB 1/17, Noor Bank B3T1 and DIB B2T1 which widened 12bps each.
Bank Indonesia
Bank Indonesia cuts key policy rates by 25bps in a surprise move, with the BI rate, deposit facility rate and 7-day reverse repo rate now stand at 6.50%, 4.50% and 5.25% respectively. In addition to the rate cut, BI also raised the minimum threshold on loan-to-funding ratio to 80% from 78%. Indonesia risk premiums widened 1.5bps to 196.0bps.

In the USD sukuk pipeline, DP World and Noor Bank have selected banks for a possible benchmark issuance. Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek mentioned plans of an issuance within 1H16. Bloomberg Malaysia Sukuk Ex-MYR Total Return (BMSXMTR) and Dow Jones Sukuk Total Return (DJSUKTXR) indices closed lower at 103.55 (-0.26%) and 159.18 (-0.44%) respectively. Malaysia’s revenue fell slightly to MYR1.54bn (-0.7%) in 2015 while income tax revenue increased by 7.8%. Turkey's unemployment rate declined to 10.9% and its government budget balance improved to TRY5.36bn in April. Indonesia’s trade balance rose to USD667m in April mainly due to the larger than expected decline in imports.

Crowdfunding is a way to connect ordinary individuals with the innovative projects they support. It is possible for retail investors to become venture capitalists and probably own shares in the next giant tech company. In Indonesia, however, this method of raising money might face some challenges. Firstly, Indonesians have trust issues with money transactions carried out over the internet. Secondly, there is a lack of crowdfunding education among retail investors. The government needs to undertake supervisory and regulatory functions to respond to the problems.

The Indonesian government is considering cutting the levy to zero for all local-currency sovereign bonds from 15% for domestic investors and 20% for international ones. According to Abas A. Jalil, CEO of Amanah Capital Group, the zero tax will definitely encourage more participation by government funds in the Indonesian sukuk market. The proposal aims to revive Islamic banking after the industry shrank to 3.5% of total financial assets in March, from 5% a year earlier. Only one Indonesian company has issued rupiah sukuk in 2016 for the equivalent of $7.3 mn compared with $5.9 bn worth of ringgit sales in Malaysia, the biggest Shariah-compliant debt market.