Asian News - Malaysia: IFSB to develop guiding principles for takaful and capital markets globally
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Jan 2016
The Kuala Lumpur-based Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) plans to develop guiding principles for takaful and Islamic capital markets, seeking to encourage regulatory consistency across new and established markets, its Secretary General has said.
The new guidelines from the 188-member IFSB, one of the main standard-setting bodies for Islamic finance, will complement existing commercial banking guidelines. A wider set of standards could assist the International Monetary Fund which plans to include Islamic finance in its surveillance work, known as the Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP).
“Before the FSAP, there has to be a set of core principles and that really is the instrument that we feel is going to point the way and facilitate consistency across borders,” IFSB Secretary-General Mr Jaseem Ahmed told Reuters.
The standards would complement regulatory guidance from the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS).
The move comes hot on the heels of work done on retakaful and microtakaful. Last November, IFSB issued an exposure draft on guiding principles for retakaful including elements concerning governance, Shariah principles, transparency and supervisory review processes. The same month, it issued with IAIS a Joint Paper on Issues in Regulation and Supervision of Microtakaful.