Next week in BizHive Weekly

The Islamic finance market is ready for disruption as is the theme for this year’s World Islamic Economic Forum 2017 (WIEF 2017) held here in Kuching this week. With expectations of the Islamic finance market size to be US$3.4 trillion by the end of 2018, experts share their views on the prospect of financial technology (fintech) in Islamic finance and how they disrupt the industry – for the better: I hope that Islamic finance practicioners or people who are keen to develop Islamic finance, to think outside the concept of banking…Think fintech as the alternative tool l offering Islamic finance rather than the traditional banks. Because you need to set up an entire infrastructure and the entire infrastructure is expensive. You need a lot of changes in regulations, so many things to do. Raja Teh Maimunah Raja Abdul Aziz, AmInvestment Bank Malaysia chief executive officer

TThe role of fintech, or Islamic fintech would be to expand the accessibility of Islamic finance in a country, in Malayisa. So long as we focus on the value proposition of Islamic finance because sometimes we tend to see Islamic finance as being religious. But the good thing is that people in Malaysia tend to know that Islamic finance is not only for Muslims, it is for the community. So because you see the benefits of Islamic finance, you can market this through fintech so you can get more people. Dato’ Dr Mohd Azmi Omar, INCEIF Malaysia president and chief executive officer

We (Sweden) are at the forefront and we attract alot of f investments in fintech but, we are facing serious challenges, because the global competition is fierce…We are facing tremendous pressure in actually reinventing ourselves. We are facing the challenges of disruption, in fact. I believe I am convinced that we need to open up and be more open and curious about the potential of Islamic finance in order to stay competitive, in order to promote business, promote jobs and promote growth.