Stakeholders Meeting on ‘Developing Islamic Financial Industry Database of OIC Member Countries’
Date: 09 October 2016
Venue: Washington DC-USA -

The Stakeholders Meeting on SESRIC Project titled ‘Developing Islamic Financial Industry Database of OIC Member Countries’ was organised by SESRIC in collaboration with the World Bank Global Islamic Finance Development Center on 9 October 2016 in the margins of the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington DC, USA. High level representatives of the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) and World Bank Global Islamic Finance Development Center participated in the meeting. Mr. Nabil Dabour, Assistant Director General of SESRIC, Mrs. Zehra Zumrut Selcuk, Director of Statistics and Information Department and Dr. Nihat Gumus, Project Consultant represented the Centre thereat.

Given the lack of comprehensive and reliable statistical data on Islamic finance industry, SESRIC has initiated in 2015 the project titled “Developing Islamic Financial Industry Database of OIC Countries” in close collaboration with the World Bank Global Islamic Finance Development Centre in Istanbul.

The main objective of this project is to identify the issues and challenges towards developing an accurate, comprehensive, detailed and standardized database for the Islamic financial industry covering banking, capital markets, insurance, and non-bank financial institutions sector within OIC member countries. The project ultimately will support the formulation of strategies by decision-makers on financial inclusion and market development.

The Stakeholders Meeting aimed to develop cooperation means in this area and to receive the comments and advises of relevant stakeholders in order to prepare a technical conceptual framework “project document” for developing a database on Islamic Finance industry based on the lessons learnt from previously initiated projects by other stakeholders. In this context, the following topics were discussed throughout the meeting:

  • What are the major of most important aspect of the existing data needs in Islamic finance sector?
  • What kinds of broad set of variables are needed more urgently as compared to other variables?
  • What kinds of attempts have been made so far to solve those issues? What happened?
  • What are the critical success factors for such a project to achieve the ultimate goal?
  • Which parties in addition to SESRIC and the World Bank should be included in such an initiative?
  • How can be the participation of member countries increased to the collection of data process? How can be the response rate for the survey to be distributed among member countries increased?
  • How much resources and time would be needed for the construction of the data template and ultimate database?

Initiated in 2011, the Statistical Commission of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC-StatCom) whose Secretariat is being carried by our Centre, has included the Islamic Banking and Finance Statistics (IBFStat) in its Strategic Vision 2020 document. In line with this strategic objective, SESRIC has taken an active approach by organising meetings and engaging with the main stakeholders that shape the Islamic financial services industry.

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