Kuala Lumpur, March 7, 2013 – ISRA Consultancy Sdn. Bhd. (ICSB) has successfully organized an in-house training program for Bank Rakyat’s Board of Directors and Management Team at Sasana Kijang, Bank Negara Malaysia. The training focused on Shariah and Islamic Values of Islamic Finance in Malaysia.

The objective of this training was to promote the ethical values, transparency and excellence of governance that are inherent in Shariah principles. This means that all financial transactions should be in adherence with Shariah principles such as the avoidance of riba, gambling (maysir) and speculation (gharar). The training also sought to further enhance infrastructure building in the areas of the Shariah, legal, regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

A total of 21 participants from Bank Rakyat’s Board of Directors and Bank Rakyat’s Senior Management Team, including Chairman of the Board, the Honourable Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Sabbaruddin Chik, attended the training. They were a very energetic and enthusiastic group of participants with a positive attitude towards this training, which made the experience very interactive indeed.

Four modules were presented. The first, on Shariah and Other Issues Associated with the Structuring of Islamic Banking Products, was presented by Dr Aznan Hasan, a member of ISRA’s Council of Scholars. During the training session, Dr Aznan shared his real-life experiences related to this module. This really attracted the attention of the participants, resulting in countless questions and answers.

The second module, on Applicable Guidelines and Circulars by the Regulators (Bank Negara Malaysia, Securities Commission, AAOIFI), was presented by Associate Professor Dr Rusni Hassan. The training session continued with the presentation from Associate Professor Dr. Mohamad Akram Laldin, the Executive Director of ISRA, on Islamic Values in Corporate Governance of the Islamic Banks: The Approaches by the Board of Directors and Management.

Finally, the last session of the training was on the sharing experience in the Implementation of Shari’ah Concept of other banks by Prof. Dr. Ashraf Md Hashim, CEO of I ISRA Consultancy Sdn. Bhd(ICSB), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mohamad Akram Laldin and Associate Professor Dr. Shamsiah Mohamad. It was a very interactive session, with questions from the participants seeking greater clarity that were met with very clear and definite answers from the presenters.

The participants rated the training highly and gave very positive comments in the evaluation feedback forms. The training improved their awareness and understanding with an overview of the Islamic finance industry and its current issues, from both local and global perspectives. They requested ISRA Consultancy Sdn. Bhd. (ICSB) to provide further training of this sort in the near future.

Based on the success of this training, ICSB is very happy to extend such training to other Islamic financial institutions. Interested parties can contact Ustaz Mazrul (Manager, Training ICSB) at [email protected] for further discussion and arrangements.