We must, as part of the comprehensive suite of financial services that we offer to global investors and borrowers. Shariah-compliant financial instruments allow issuers to tap a new source of funds and liquidity. But the development of an Islamic financial services market does not just serve indigenous Muslim populations. Malaysia, for instance, has successfully launched global sukuk, or Islamic bonds, to tap liquidity from investors in both Asia and the Middle East. Other issuers of global sukuks have also stopped by Singapore on their road shows to tap Singapore’s investor pool. It may not be too long before we have a Singapore corporate issuing a sukuk to raise funds from global investors. We are also seeing already private fund managers in Asia and the Middle East working together. Recently, for instance, ARA Asset Management based in Singapore had worked in partnership with Dubai Islamic Bank to launch a $ 450 million Islamic Far Eastern Real Estate Fund with underlying assets located in Asia. Fourth and finally, we can do more to foster people-to-people interaction in the financial sector. For instance, Asian central banks including the Monetary Authority of Singapore have participated actively in Middle East finance and central banking seminars to share our perspectives on issues of mutual interest. Tomorrow there will be a seminar organised jointly by the Islamic Financial Services Board and Islamic Development Bank tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur on developing a 10-year master plan for the Islamic financial services industry globally.
Today, I would like to focus my remarks on three important shifts that I believe will underpin innovative risk management practices going forward. · First is the changing role and focus of risk managers in supporting business decisionmaking. ·  Second, is a shift from risk measures to risk narratives. · And third is an increasing emphasis on building resilience alongside the prevailing focus on averting risks. Changing role of risk managers One of the most important changes that corporations can make to strengthen risk management is to appropriately position the risk function to effectively support enhanced business decision making. An effective risk management function should interact with other business functions to deliver value. This itself is hardly an innovative idea. But you would be surprised (or maybe not) to learn that despite an increasing involvement of risk managers in business decision-making, poor alignment between decisions that are taken by business leaders, and the intentions of senior management and the board, continue to persist in many organisations. A common reason for this is the absence of, or a poorly defined risk appetite framework. And very few organisations, if any, have gone further to articulate their risk appetite for managing innovation specifically. This has important implications for risk managers. We cannot expect risk managers to be very helpful to business leaders who have explicit growth and revenue targets to meet, if risk managers are not themselves guided by a risk appetite that is equally well-defined.