ISLAMIC FINANCE SUMMIT︱KUALA LUMPUR 2019

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Join us at The Economist’s Islamic Finance Summit on March 14th 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, where TEEK TAKA founder Thaslima Begum will be discussing how technological disruption could play a major role in the development of Islamic finance.

The World Bank estimates that there is a total of $2 trillion in shariah compliant assets today, mostly sitting with Islamic banks. But there is still room for further expansion, both in relatively unbanked Muslim countries and in the West.

Major recent issuances of Islamic bonds or sukuk have caused a spike in capital and experts speculate that the sector could grow by another $1 trillion by the end of 2018. Yet global growth in the industry is under threat. Islamic banks have been slow to adopt emerging technologies and could miss the spread of financial inclusion in the Islamic world, which has a large unbanked population.

Governments have been too cautious in their efforts to create regulatory environments that nurture start-ups and are attractive to foreign investors. Fractured scholarly definitions of what is and is not shariah compliant further dampens the industry’s cross-border potential. Continuous geopolitical strife in the Middle East threatens to undermine foreign investment and Islamic finance desperately needs global standards.

The summit will convene regulators, leaders from international financial institutions, Islamic finance scholars, investors and entrepreneurs to assess the trajectory of Islamic finance, determine a framework for global standards, and discuss how the industry can be brought into the mainstream.

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