Lim: ‘We should widen the range of sukuk products to capture untapped markets and Malaysia has its strength because we have plenty deposits and constantly looking for yields.’
KUALA LUMPUR: Increasing the number of products under the Islamic asset class will appeal to a broader range of investors and cement Malaysia’s place as a major centre for Islamic wealth management.
OCBC Malaysia head of consumer financial services Lim Wyson said Islamic wealth management should be viewed as an investment strategy with sound proposition that can appeal to investors.
“We should widen the range of sukuk products to capture untapped markets and Malaysia has its strength because we have plenty deposits and constantly looking for yields,” he said at the global Islamic Finance Forum 5.0 here yesterday.
He added that the country could position itself as an international wealth management centre.
Chief executive officer (CEO) and country head of BNP Paribas Investment Partners Malaysia Angelia Chin-Sharpe said although the product gap wasn’t huge in the market, compared with the conventional space, there was still room for syariah-compliant funds.
Commenting on the limitations in the sukuk market, Employees Provident Fund (EPF) CEO Datuk Shahril Ridza Ridzuan said: “If we can move away from the preoccupation with syariah financing link purely based on faith-based systems and move towards sustainability, then perhaps this will be the right way forward to see some growth.”
There should be more flexibility in conceptualising what syariah financing was about rather than focusing purely as an Islamic product.
Securities Commission Islamic capital market executive director Zainal Izlan Zainal Abidin said that growth was inevitable in South-East Asia despite the challenging landscape.
Against the volatile backdrop, he noted that the size of Malaysia’s Islamic capital market had more than tripled over the last 10 years, with an average growth of 11.7% per annum and accounted 60% of the entire capital market in the country.
“And Islamic assets under management by Malaysian fund managers rose about 20% last year to over RM130bil from 2014,” said Zainal Izlan.
