IslamicFinance.de

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said on Tuesday that Bank Asya is in the hands of the Turkish banking watchdog and its insurance fund. On May 29, Turkey's Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), the country’s banking watchdog, ruled for the complete takeover of all shares of Bank Asya by the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF). The deputy minister stressed that the BDDK and TMSF are independent organizations. Separately, Turkish stock exchange regulators on Tuesday lifted the ban on the trading of Bank Asya’s shares one day after it was halted. The bank’s shares opened at Friday’s closing prices 0.76 Turkish lira. The shares dropped to 0.69 lira, a loss of 9.21 percent.

Turkey, as the chair of G20 group, promotes Islamic finance because it offers additional financial instruments with less uncertainty and shared risks, according to the country’s deputy prime minister Ali Babacan. His comments were made during a panel discussion at the annual spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group in Washington. Islamic finance is safer, according to Babacan, who cited the 2000 and 2009 financial crises. Also for regulation purposes, macro credential purposes, it is considered as a less risky kind of financing means, he added. The more countries develop stronger legal frameworks to support Islamic finance, the more attention the system would get as issuers and investors who are sensitive to Islamic rules participate in the structure.

The board of directors of Turkey’s VakifBank’s has authorized a major loan procurement to set up an Islamic banking operation and confirmed that the bank’s general directorate office now has the authority to push ahead with the $300 million financing. The Turkish government wants to see the establishment of three Islamic banks as subsidiaries of the current state-run conventional banks by the end of 2015.