18 May 2015, Almaty, Kazakhstan – The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) and INCEIF – The Global University of Islamic Finance and today renewed an agreement to facilitate international cooperation between the two organisations to provide relevant activities relating to capacity building and awareness promotion in Islamic finance.

The IFSB Secretary-General, Mr Jaseem Ahmed and INCEIF President and Chief Executive Officer Daud Vicary Abdullah signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on behalf of their institutions, on the sidelines of the 12th IFSB Summit in Almaty, Kazakhstan this morning.

This mutual co-operation aims to strengthen the efforts of the two institutions in promoting an exchange of information, undertaking research, development, training and education in the Islamic financial services industry. More specifically, the MoU identifies the following areas of cooperation between the IFSB and INCEIF:

• Jointly exploring and undertaking various research issues concerning Islamic financial services industry.
• Providing reciprocal staff development and exchange programmes.
• Building awareness among the industry players through jointly conducting learning and awareness programmes including among others: conferences, seminars, workshops, roundtables, trainings (including custom-designed learning and training programmes).
• Cooperating in providing technical assistance to facilitate the implementation of the IFSB Standards and to assist in building the necessary financial infrastructure for development of a sound and stable Islamic financial services industry.

Under the first MoU, signed in 2012, the IFSB and INCEIF successfully held a series of six Executive Forums (EF) covering a wide range of pertinent topics on Islamic Finance. The IFSB-INCEIF Executive Forums on Islamic Finance aim to provide a platform for industry’s global leaders to discuss selected emerging issues facing the global Islamic financial services industry, emphasising on issues related to supervision and prudential regulation, both at the national and international levels, harnessing from the experiences of a distinguished pool of global experts, academics and practitioners.

The next Executive Forum on Islamic Finance, themed Building Momentum for Islamic Liquidity Management will be held on 3 – 4 June 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Information on the Executive Forums is available on both the IFSB and INCEIF websites, www.ifsb.org and www.inceif.org.