It must dispel the image of takaful as being an overly-complicated form of insurance suitable only for Muslims. Market positioning should have broad appeal. Products should be easy to understand and live up to public expectations of fair treatment, transparent and efficient service. In operational terms, this means using plain and simple language and always seeking to do what is right for the customer, rather than only what is legally required. Over 50% of insurance and takaful complaints that we received in 2017 were of mis-selling or misrepresentation. Remember, when our staff or agents misinform or mistreat a customer, they harm the institution and industry’s reputation, undoing all the hard work that went into building the system that we have today. As a society we need to take care of our own, specifically for the B40 group. There is a lot of work to be done. As at end-2016, insurance and takaful penetration in the B40 segment of working age stood at 30.3%, compared with the overall penetration rate of 46.8%. The roll out of affordable, accessible and easy to understand products under Perlindungan Tenang is a start in meeting the needs of the underserved. Unfortunately, to date, only three takaful operators have developed products under this initiative. Given the importance of financial inclusion for the nation and takaful being a product with pseudo-social leanings, we should expect much more from takaful operators.
What’s going on? Speech given by Dave Ramsden, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking, Bank of England  Barclays Inflation Conference, London 7 June 2018  I am grateful to William Abel, Harvey Daniell, Bianca Ginelli Nardi, Raf Kinston, Simon Kirby, Elliot Luciani-Kane, Rebecca Maule, Sanjay Odedra, Tom Smith, Pawel Smietanka and Brad Speigner for their assistance in preparing this speech, and Clare Macallan, Michael Saunders and other Bank staff for their helpful comments and suggestions. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  An unusual position UK GDP growth has slowed following the Brexit referendum, and it slowed even more in the first quarter of this year. In the MPC’s May Inflation Report we are forecasting that it will remain subdued over the forecast period. If our forecast materialises, annual growth will have been between 1¼ and 2% for five consecutive years from 2016 to 2020. To give some context, annual average GDP growth has been in this range in only eight of the 50 years before that period, and three of those were since the financial crisis. It’s been said before but it bears repeating: the UK economy is in an unusual position. Over the past few years, meanwhile, unemployment has fallen from a high of 8.5% to a forty year low of just 4.2%. Employment has similarly picked up to record highs.