In addition, Malaysia established the International Centre for Leadership in Finance (ICLIF) in 2003 to also provide leadership development and management training for the Islamic financial institutions. Closely linked to having the talent is the need to have strong and well established Islamic financial institutions. This presents another challenge for the Islamic financial industry as there are currently not many large Islamic financial institutions. Many of the players are not large enough globally to finance large development projects, particularly in Muslim countries and are not strong enough to underwrite the needs of the Islamic financial community on a large scale. Currently, some of the project financing in Muslim nations are undertaken by large conventional banks because of the under capitalisation of the Islamic financial institutions. We therefore need to have strong and highly capitalised Islamic financial institutions that are able to offer the comprehensive and complete range of Islamic financial products and services. Besides having large Islamic financial players with the required pool of expertise, the integration of the Islamic financial system with the international financial system needs to be supported by the development of a full Islamic financial system at the national level, thereby increasing the potential to effectively participate in a more liberalised and globalised environment. Towards this end, Malaysia together with other OIC countries, are collaborating with the IDB and IFSB to formulate a ten-year master plan for the future global development of the Islamic financial services industry.
Stefan Ingves: Strengthening bank capital – Basel III and beyond Keynote address by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank and Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, at the Ninth High Level Meeting for the Middle East & North Africa Region, jointly organised by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the Financial Stability Institute and the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 18 November 2013. *  *  *  As prepared for delivery Good morning everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to speak about what – among the myriad of recent regulatory initiatives – has probably been the most important: strengthening bank capital. Strengthening bank capital is not simply about asking banks to hold more capital. Rather, it is a broader objective that involves ensuring the functioning of the entire capital regime. The Basel Committee’s approach has therefore been to work extensively on the consistent implementation of the regulatory capital framework. The ultimate goal is to implement Basel III so that it strengthens the quantity, quality, consistency and reliability of bank capital ratios around the world. Quantity and quality of capital As you know, a set of requirements designed to raise the quantity and quality of bank capital lies at the heart of the Basel III reforms. Not only were minimum capital requirements raised, but the increases in capital requirements were focused on where they were needed most: in going-concern loss-absorbing capital, or Common Equity Tier 1.