IslamicFinance.de

Chairman of CIMB Group Holdings, Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, is taking leave of absence to facilitate the review of the bank’s anti-money laundering processes. Earlier this month, Nazir was identified as one of the persons whom his brother, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, had assigned the task of disbursing US$7mil (RM27.2mil) in the run-up to the 2013 general election. The review is expected to be complete in a few weeks, by which time the board of directors will decide whether Nazir will maintain his positions in the group.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s goal of reining in the budget deficit looks set to get tougher as a unit of the nation’s biggest lender predicts borrowing costs on Islamic bonds will climb to a record. Maybank Islamic Asset Management says benchmark sukuk yields may rise to 5% this year should the United States raise interest rates to 1.25% from a maximum 0.5% now, and if investors price in further tightening in the following 12 months. Higher yields on government debt may complicate Najib’s efforts to fund a US$444bil development programme to build railways, roads and power plants. The ringgit is already down 2.2% in 2016 as a selloff in Chinese stocks sparked risk aversion.

Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak thinks that the maximum potential of the Islamic economy, including finance, banking, industry, waqaf and the insurance takaful, is still not fully realised. However, there are many challenges that need to be addressed: strong support from the political leadership to make things happen; institution building; human capital development; the shortage of expertise in many areas like Islamic finance, standardisation and regulatory framework; syariah experts to make sure your products are syariah-compliant, among others. Regarding SMEs, Malaysia has a masterplan for their development, with the goal to make SMEs achieve about 41 per cent of GDP by 2020.

The first exchange traded bonds and Sukuk (ETBS) has been launched on Tuesday. The sukuk was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who explained that the retail offering would make it possible for citizens to have a stake in the country's success. Danainfra Nasional Bhd is allocating as much as RM300mil under this issuance. The initial tranche will be used to fund the first phase of the MRT Kajang to Sungai Buloh line.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak exposed what CMP2 means: changes to the regulatory framework for fundraising and product regulation to slash unnecessary red tape and lead to faster turnaround of approvals. The purpose is to open the potential of the market.
At the "Invest Malaysia 2011" conference, Najib stated that there is a plan to increase the number of Proprietary Day Traders by almost threefold to enable more dealer representatives to become specialised traders.
Present at the conference were: Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Haji Abdullah, chairman of Bursa Malaysia, Tnn Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Bank Negara Malaysia Governor, Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, chairman of Securities Commission, Tan Sri Megat Zaharuddin Megat Mohd Nor, chairman of Maybank Goup, Datuk Tajuddin Atan, the new chief executive officer of Bursa Malaysia and Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar, the chief executive officer of Maybank Group.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) has got the attention of foreign lawyers who are keen to learn more about Islamic financial instruments for business development and economic reconstruction.
Lawyers from premier firms from 18 cities in the region and from other major financial centers, who congregated here last week to attend the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of Interlaw, acknowledged Malaysia's specialised expertise in Islamic finance.

Young working adults can now buy themselves a new home without having to pay anything in down payment.
The My First Home Scheme is launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and will enable them to buy houses costing between RM100,000 and RM220,000 with a repayment period of up to 30 years. The scheme sees the participation of 25 conventional and Islamic financial institutions including major banks like AmBank, CIMB, Hong Leong, Maybank, Public Bank, RHB and Standard Chartered.