Malaysia Supplies World Class Talent For Islamic Finance, Says Zeti

By Samantha Tan Chiew Ting
October 15, 2011 15:10 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- Malaysia, via the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF), is supplying world class talent for the fast-growing Islamic finance, says chairman and chancellor, Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

"INCEIF was set up to supply talent to the financial industry not just for Malaysia but for global development of Islamic finance," said Zeti, who is also governor of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).

Speaking to Bernama after the third convocation of INCEIF today, Zeti said, Malaysia, the learning centre for Islamic finance, has also collaborated with other universities globally.

"We collaborated with universities all over the world not only in Islamic countries but also in many of the developed countries.

"This is a collective collaboration to produce the world class talent," she said.

Zeti said she was pleased that INCEIF's 176 graduates today were from 32 countries, which further reflected Malaysia's role in supporting the global development of Islamic finance with the development of world class talent.

Of the 176 graduates, three are Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) holders in Islamic finance, 14 are Masters in Islamic finance and 159 graduated as Chartered Islamic Finance Professional (CIFP).

INCEIF's third convocation saw its first batch of PhDs in Islamic finance, a record number of Masters in Islamic finance and CIFP graduating today.

Among the graduates are students from Muslim-minority countries including Canada, China, France, UK and Germany, while others are from neigbouring countries of Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand as well as from the Gulf and African countries.

INCEIF was set up in 2005 by BNM with an endowment fund of RM600 million.

It is the one of many initiatives undertaken by Malaysia to develop and nurture talents and experts under the Malaysia International Islamic Finance Centre.

As at Sept 15 this year, INCEIF has 1,930 CIFP students where 1,555 are online students from over 70 countries, while 107 students are in the Masters in Islamic finance programme and 160 in PhD in Islamic finance programme.

-- BERNAMA

Source : http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=620062