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Name: |
Ahmed Abbas
CEO Liquidity Management Centre Bahrain Bahraini |
Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today? What does your role involve? What is your greatest achievement to date? Which of your products/services deliver the best results? What are the strengths of your business? And the second is the support that we get from our esteemed shareholders and our strategic partners that have been extremely supportive of us. So it’s strength from both internal and external, if you may. Although I would like to call it internal and higher internal. What are the factors contributing to the success of your company? What are the obstacles faced in running your business today? People can talk about rules and regulations, argue about standardization, discuss Shariah differences — all of these can be addressed in many ways. Having the right people and addressing it the right way; it has been addressed and it has been done. But what cannot be addressed are egos. How do you put all the Islamic banks together and have them work based on one theme? If you look at the liquidity problems we have today. It’s a fact that the size of the liquidity of the region, per say, is much larger than the economies of the region. So why should we have a problem? Why are we not cooperating? I think the region is fundamentally sound, especially Islamic banking. And that should be accredited to the higher bodies governing the Islamic banks, that is Shariah boards, as well as the framework of the Islamic banks.
I think the framework is sound; it is based on the real economy and in theory, should be immune to the mishaps in the market. But, why are we not capitalizing on the framework to the maximum? We are going to get there one day.
Where do you see the Islamic finance industry in, say, the next five years?
By nature I am a pessimistic person. But when it comes to the Islamic finance industry, I think my pessimism goes out the window. Today, Islamic banking, through being basic and elementary, has prevailed. This is the opportunity where Islamic banks can and will flex their muscles based on their model. I was at a conference recently and I heard somebody say that there are more people interested in knowing about Islam through the ‘financial door’ than ever before. If you measure it by that, I think prospects are quite good. So I expect Islamic finance to grow and I prevail. Let’s not forget that Islamic banking is only six or seven years old. For 30 years, nothing really happened. So given where we are after such a short period of time, we have achieved far more than the conventional banks or conventional capital markets have achieved in 10 years. And that’s a fact.
Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance? |