Besides Malaysia, the study showed that Saudis also preferred to holiday in Egypt and Indonesia.

The survey on consumer confidence and purchasing priorities was conducted by MasterCard Worldwide from March 23 to April 18, this year, and involved 9,211 consumers from 21 markets.

Markets surveyed were Australia, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, South Africa, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Vietnam.

MasterCard said 33 per cent of the Middle East and Levant’s consumers were planning to spend on international personal air travel within the next six months.

In particular, consumers from Kuwait (71 per cent) were looking forward to holidays abroad, followed by those from the UAE (51 per cent) and Saudi Arabia (30 per cent).

The study found that Egypt (as indicated by 30 per cent of consumers), Malaysia (24 per cent) and Indonesia (23 per cent) ranked as favourite destinations among Saudi consumers.

MasterCard Worldwide area business head for Gulf countries Raghu Malhotra said: “Through our ongoing research efforts, we’re able to gain in-depth insight into what consumers want.

“We’re committed to working closely with our customers, as well as merchants across the Middle East, to provide the best in benefits and privileges to MasterCard cardholders when they’re going about their daily purchases, whether at home or overseas.”

Source: Bernama

“We are very pelased with this successful achievement within such a short timeframe. We have also registered a strong momentum in credit cards growth, and expect to grow further. This is testament that despite that it is new to the market, more customers prefer the MPower Credit Card-i as its features and benefits match their lifestyle and financial requirements,”

HSBC Amanah executive director and chief executive officer Musa Abdul Malek said in the statement.

MPower Credit Card-i is one of the first Islamic credit cards in Malaysia that uses the globally accepted Syariah concept of Ujrah (fee contract).

Source: Bernama

CIMB Bank Bhd

“We will aggressively launch new credit cards and also look to sales from Islamic cards. We are giving good benefits to our credit card holders,” he told reporters after the opening of Perfect Livin’09, the largest home and lifestyle event.

Also present was the head of direct banking and cards, Jean Yap Yoke Yuen and the organiser of the exhibition, CNM Holdings Sdn Bhd’s chief operating officer Yam Fook Poh.

CIMB is the presenter of Perfect Livin’09.

The four-day exhibition, from Aug 28, is being held at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) and showcases electrical items, beddings, furnishings, kitchenware, and artificial plants.

Ahmad said CIMB Bank is aiming for 5,000 new credit card holders during the exhibition.

On non-performing loans related to credit cards, he said it was being well managed with customers knowing how to control expenses.

The bank, he added, was also seeing good spending despite the current economic environment.

According to Ahmad, Perfect Livin’09 is expected to attract 150,000 visitors, up from last year’s 100,000,as Malaysians are bargain hunters.

He also said that the exhibition is expected to garner more than RM11 million in sales this time from the RM8 million last year.

CIMB Bank is also planning to hold the exhibition in selected states next year, given the good response.

Source: Bernama

CIMB Bank

The card was jointly launched by Touch ‘n Go Sdn Bhd (TNGSB) and CIMB Bank to provide convenience and flexibility of reloading their Touch ‘n Go card, the bank and TNGSB said in a joint statement Thursday.

The card comes with the Touch ‘n Go Zing card, which functions as standard Touch ‘n Go card with automatic reload value of RM100 to the card when its balance drops to RM50, they said.

Multiple reload values on Touch ‘n Go Zing card allow users to manage their finance more effectively and save on reload service charges, especially for heavy users of highway and public transportation, they added.

The CIMB Touch ‘n Go Visa Card is a free-for-life credit card and the cardholders will get to enjoy 10 times bonus points for the first reload, while subsequent reloads will be entitled to two times bonus points.

TNGSB managing director Hasni Zarina Mohamed Khan said Touch ‘n Go recorded more than 700,000 auto-reload transactions from Zing cards with reload values close to RM75 million so far this year and currently there are more than 500,000 Zing cards in circulation.

Source: Bernama

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd

Its general manager of Treasurer Division, Norashikin Kassim, said the bank was constantly innovating products to tap the US trillion global Islamic finance market.

“There is a lot of demand for Islamic products both locally and overseas, and we are constantly innovating to produce solutions to meet our customers’ needs. We will look at launching both on the consumer and corporate side and will make the announcement in due course,”

she told reporters at the sidelines of the Malaysian Corporate Conference 2009, organised by the Association of Islamic Banking Institutions Malaysia, here on Thursday.

Norashikin

Norashikin said with Islamic financing projected to grow even more rapidly in the next five to 10 years, Bank Islam was in the position to tap the market as the bank already offered a complete range of Islamic products both for its individual customers and corporate clients.

She said more customers were also beginning to understand that the Syariah based Islamic banking was not just about religion based banking, but premised on ethical values.

Norashikin said Bank Islam was also the first bank in the world to minimise risk exposure to fixed rate payments, by swapping some of them with a conventional bank for floating rate payments.

“For profit rate or interest rate for conventional, we offer Islamic profit rate to hedge against interest rate from increasing. Customers can enter Islamic profit risk with Bank Islam to convert it from floating rate to a fixed rate,” she said.

Bank Islam also offers products that hedge against a floating rate in the foreign currency.

“A ringgit-based company that has taken financing in US dollar can enter into Islamic cross currency profit risk swap to convert the US dollar floating rate to a fixed ringgit rate which is Syariah compliant,” she explained.

Among the financing deals offered by Bank Islam are Wiqa’ Forward Rate Agreement (WFRA), Wiqa’ Profit Rate Swaps (WPRS), Islamic Cross Currencies Swap (ICCS) and Commodity Murabahah.

Source: Bernama

In a statement here Wednesday, Maybank said the poll was conducted to showcase the leaders in the private banking industry in Asia.

Maybank’s senior executive vice-president/head of consumer banking, Lim Hong Tat, said the award was a testimony of the value proposition which Maybank brought with its comprehensive and innovative private banking products and services.

“We dedicate this award to our customers for their support of our wealth management as well as our employees,” he said.

Maybank began offering wealth management services in 2007.

The assets under management and the number of high networth and ultra-high networth clients under management had both grown over 50 per cent since 2007 bringing the current total financial assets to RM46 billion.

Source: Bernama

In a statement Friday, IBFIM said it hoped the financial planning and wealth management community will benefit from the conference and be conversant with Islamic or syariah-compliant financial planning and explore the opportunities.

The conference is also part of the long term objective to develop Malaysia as an international Islamic financial planning and wealth management hub.

Among the significant accomplishments made in that direction is the introduction of the Islamic Financial Planner qualification that is recognised both by Bank Negara Malaysia and the Securities Commission, it said.

The conference expects to bring together financial planning and wealth management professionals, investment product providers, consultants and service providers, including those in the Islamic banking, takaful, investment and asset management industry.

Source: Bernama

Bursa Malaysia

Commodity Murabahah House (CMH), a Malaysia International Islamic Financial Centre (MIFC) initiative operated by Bursa Malaysia’s fully Shariah compliant wholly-owned subsidiary, Bursa Malaysia Islamic Services Sdn Bhd, is an international spot commodity platform which facilitates commodity-based Islamic financing and investment transactions under the Shari’ah principles of Murabahah, Tawarruq and Musawwamah. Initial trades will use crude palm oil to be followed by other Shari’ah approved commodities covering both soft and hard commodities. At present, trades will be Ringgit-denominated whilst efforts are being undertaken to make it multi currency capable, providing more choice, access and flexibility for international financial institutions to participate in this market. This trading platform, which is fully electronic, is the world’s first end-to-end Shari’ah-compliant commodity trading platform designed with the main purpose of serving the Islamic financial markets.

Dato’ Yusli Mohamed Yusoff, Chief Executive Officer of Bursa Malaysia said,

“We are the first in the world to innovate a Commodity Trading Platform infrastructure using crude palm oil as the underlying commodity. We expect the innovation of this web-based and fully automated platform to change the way most Islamic financial institutions transact commodity murabahah going forward. This infrastructure is set to complement our capital and money market offerings. The players, which range from financial institutions, CPO producers to trading participants, will benefit from additional revenue stream, stemming from the low liquidity risk element that is apparent in the financing structure of CMH.”

Dato’ Yusli added, “The implementation of CMH, planned for August this year, is in line with our efforts to further spur the development of the Islamic market in Malaysia. We are confident that this will give Bursa Malaysia the stature to bring forth its Islamic market’s offerings to the global front.”

Commodity Murabahah is widely used as a money market tool by Islamic banks in the GCC. The concept of Commodity Murabahah involves one party buying commodity at a certain cost and selling it to a customer at a cost-plus-profit basis. The customer will then pay the amount and the profit to the party on deferred-payment basis. The customer then sells back the commodity to the commodity market on spot for cash. The trade involves the sale and purchase of real physical assets.

GlobalPro Consulting is organizing the Conference on Marketing and Innovations for Islamic Financial Services on 29-30 July 2009. The event will be held at the 5-star Hotel Istana in Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur is the world’s leading centre for Islamic finance.

Industry experts, consultants and practitioners from Malaysia and other countries will discuss various topics such as marketing strategies and branding for Islamic financial services. Syariah principles and guidelines for marketing of Islamic financial products and services as well as ethical aspects of marketing will also be addressed.

This is an international event with global speakers and audience.Some 100 participants are expected to attend the conference.

CIMB Group won all three Malaysia awards in this year’s Asiamoney Best Bank awards, making it the only bank in Asia to sweep all three country awards.

CIMB was voted Best Domestic Bank, Best Domestic Equity House and Best Domestic Debt House, the bank said in a statement here Friday.

“We are delighted. This is the first time that we have won the Best Domestic Bank award and obtained a clean sweep,” said its group’s chief executive Datuk Seri Nazir Razak.

“This is recognition of the success of our three year transformation of CIMB Bank, achieved without compromising our leadership in the capital markets arena,” he added.

Asiamoney meanwhile in its latest publication, said that CIMB has had a dynamic 12 months, buying Bank Thai (now known as CIMB Thai) in Thailand and then Lippo Bank in Indonesia to become an international player.

“CIMB re-branded after acquiring Southern Bank in 2007 and it seems to be working, because they are growing faster than Public Bank in this area,” said Asiamoney.

On the Best Domestic Equity House award, the publication said CIMB was considered to be far ahead of its rivals that even international investment banks could not compete.

The awards by Asiamoney is based on research by Asiamoney’s journalists as well as market experts such as analysts and fund managers who look at balance sheet performance, return on investments, share price and any new business endeavours.

Source: Bernama