Malaysia Leads in Filling Holes in Shariah Bank Services: Islamic Finance - Bloomberg

The Islamic finance industry is catching up with Malaysia in offering a full range of services, supporting growth in an industry with $1 trillion in assets, said the chief executive officer of CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd.

Malaysia has a Shariah-law compliant alternative for every conventional product available because of its early start, Badlisyah Abdul Ghani said in a June 25 interview in Kuala Lumpur. Automobile financing complying with the religion’s ban on interest accounted for 80 percent of new loans last year, said Badlisyah. There’s no industry “handicap” or lack of demand, only the need for appropriate regulations, he said.

“We don’t have much difficulty in introducing new Islamic financial products in Malaysia as there is an effective product- development approval process,” said Badlisyah. CIMB Islamic is a unit of Malaysia’s second-biggest banking group CIMB Holdings Bhd. “In most other markets the process is not that clear, and most of the time you have to go through a cumbersome process of getting clearance from different regulators.”