Our Advisory Board Members, Ajmal Bhatty and Omar Shaikh were invited to speak at the International Takaful Summit in London on 11th-12th July 2017.
Ajmal Bhatty is a thought-leader in takaful and has been a practitioner and promoter for over 30 years. Ajmal is a Director at Tokio Marine Middle East, and is setting up a foundation to serve the takaful industry in steering it towards growth and stability and in developing ethical and sustainable micro-financial solutions for the markets of Africa and South Asia. Ajmal shared key insights into his work.
Omar spoke on Shari’ah Governance and Audit. Omar shared key findings from our External Shari’ah Audit Report (download a copy here) and fascinating insights from countries that had implemented Shari’ah Audits through their Central Banks. Omar said that the evolution of Shari’ah Governance was imperative as the [Islamic finance] industry evolved and used Morocco as a case study to demonstrate how emerging markets are supervising Shari’ah matters.
The 11th International Takaful Summit was a platform to discuss how the global Islamic insurance sector can capitalise on the experience of London’s insurance market in order to drive growth.
The flagship two-day programme addressed the challenges specific to takaful companies such as low penetration rates, distribution channels, suitable investment vehicles and the lack of qualified practitioners and operational issues that are affecting global business such as cyber security, digital disruption, data analytics and the use of robotics. The programme also covered challenges and opportunities specific to Africa, Asia and GCC takaful markets with a suggested road map for the way forward.