KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia, the world’s biggest market for Islamic bonds, may allow individuals to trade syariah-compliant debt on its exchange as part of a plan to attract new investors to the securities. “Bursa Malaysia is looking into the possibility of offering such a facility in response to market demand,” the bourse said in a statement ,“We are reviewing the feasibility of such a regime with regulators,” it said, without giving a timeline for the project.
Islamic bonds, or sukuk, use asset returns to pay investors to comply with the religion’s ban on interest and are currently traded privately on the over-the-counter market.
Malaysia is seeking to win a greater share of the Islamic bond market as it recovers from a credit freeze that followed the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Global sukuk sales rallied to US$20.2bil this year from US$14.1bil last year after jumping to a record US$31bil in 2007 amid a surge in Arab oil wealth, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The Islamic finance industry’s assets under management may swell to US$2.8 trillion by 2015 as that wealth increases and Asian economies lead a global recovery, the Kuala Lumpur-based Islamic Financial Services Board forecasts. |
