MARC named the Best Islamic Rating Agency for 2016 by Global Islamic Finance Awards

Malaysian Rating Corp Bhd chief executive officer Mohd Razlan Mohamed.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian Rating Corporation Bhd (MARC) was named the Best Islamic Rating Agency 2016 in the Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) held in Jakarta recently. The prestigious GIFA Awards, now in their sixth year, celebrate the contributions of institutions and individuals towards the development of the Islamic banking and finance industry.

MARC chief executive officer Mohd Razlan Mohamed said at the GIFA awards ceremony: “It is a great honour to be recognised again by GIFA for the quality of MARC’s credit ratings and research. 

“The willingness to go the distance in providing analytical insight has been hard-wired into our corporate DNA and so we are truly thankful to be recognised alongside esteemed institutions and individuals for just doing what we believe in.” 
This is the second time MARC has received the accolade; the rating agency was also represented at the awards ceremony of the fourth GIFA in Dubai in 2014.

Malaysia is the largest sukuk market in the world, accounting for US$207bil (52%) of the US$399bil total outstanding sukuk issued globally as at August 2016. 

As Malaysia continues to be an important centre for innovation and thought leadership in Islamic finance, MARC intends to proactively support Islamic finance by developing rating methodologies that set new standards in transparency and providing credit rating opinions and research that offer actionable insight into risks. 

Since inception to end-August, MARC completed a total of 398 ratings amounting to RM326bil on a wide range of syariah-compliant issuances by both domestic and foreign companies in the ringgit-denominated sukuk market.