Islamic Banking In The New Era

Mohd Muazzam Mohamed appears to be running two marathons simultaneously. The first marathon is his cycling feat and being a bicycle enthusiast, he tries to do at least 100 km on weekends.

He appears to have achieved many formidable feats in this area evidenced by the medals that he has showcased in his lush office but the other marathon that he is still at is his attempts to make Bank Islam a formidable financial player in the country.

Having assumed the leadership of the Bank in December 2018, the chartered accountant was tasked to steer Bank Islam towards its listing status and beyond.

His achievement to date is nothing short of stellar evidenced by the fact that Bank Islam, in the shortest period, became the country’s fourth-largest Islamic financier and Muazzam has put in place plans and set the vision for the newly restructured financial entity.

Industry analysts were baffled as to why a financial entity would undertake restructuring and the eventual listing of Bank Islam when the country was besieged with the pandemic.

In an exclusive interview with Business Today, Muazzam said that the restructuring will pave the way for Bank Islam to emerge as a full-fledged pure-play Islamic financial institution in the country and that the Bank would also be accorded full autonomy in undertaking its corporate and business strategies as well as adopting its capital management initiatives.

The Group CEO thinks that the transfer of listing from BIMB Holdings Berhad (BHB) to Bank Islam will allow the bank to gain direct access to the equity capital market for fundraising activities.

As for the shareholders, the exercise is expected to allow them to participate directly in the equity and future growth of the new Bank Islam Group and Takaful Malaysia, which were previously BHB’s subsidiaries.

The whole listing exercise would allow Bank Islam to have a capital injection to further innovate and provide better products and services for the convenience of its customers.