Panel moots central Sharia board to underpin growth of Islamic banking

MUSCAT — A panel discussion focusing on the challenges and opportunities for the growth of Islamic Banking in the Sultanate has advocated the establishment of a central Sharia Board to nurture the growth of sharia-based nancial activities. The debate was held as part of the Oman Islamic Banking and Finance Conference 2012 held at the Grand Hyatt Muscat.

Opening the discussion, Noaman Abdul Majid, Country Manager-Oman, Pak Investment Company, said: “Oman is in a unique position to bene t from the experiences of other regional economies, so Oman should ensure that whatever mistakes were made in deploying and developing the Islamic Finance framework are not repeated again and should maintain a focus on Sharia compliance, as well as customer and client orientation. It is also very important that the regulator, nancial institutions and the private sector put their heads together to develop Islamic Finance as a whole, to make sure that the proportion of Islamic Finance and the overall nancial system is signi cant enough because if everybody works in isolation to each other, it’s not going to happen. So all the stakeholders should try to create a platform to communicate with each other, so that they understand each other well and the products.”

Also taking part in the panel discussion were Hussein Soyan, Managing Director, Soyan Financial Consultancy Ltd; Dr Abdel Gadir Warsama, BBK & Professor of Law, American University, Bahrain; Adnan Khan, Finance Manager, Gulf International Chemicals; and Arsalan Ahmed Qureshi, AVP Senior Manager, Operational Risk-Risk Management Dept, Al Baraka Islamic Bank.

Adnan Khan noted the lack of quali ed people as a possible challenge. “Banking will not work on its own, it needs infrastructure, communication and mutual understanding between different banks, it needs sup- port of the private organisations because Islamic Banking needs to invest into Islamic Compliant companies and there are certain requirements for that. Unless those companies comply with those requirements, Islamic banking cannot invest into them. Other than that, the other main issue is that although Islamic Banking has been in existence for some time, we don’t have many quali ed people in this eld, which is one of the things we need here in Oman.