THE IFSB ADMITS SIX ORGANISATIONS INTO ITS MEMBERSHIP

THE IFSB ADMITS SIX ORGANISATIONS INTO ITS MEMBERSHIP

ISLAMIC FINANCE

Jeddah, KINGDOM of SAUDI ARABIA

Tuesday, 8th December 2015

The Council of the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) has today resolved to approve the admission of six organisations into the IFSB membership. These include one supervisory authority as an Associate Member, and two supervisory authorities as well as three financial institutions as Observer Members.

The 27^th meeting of the IFSB Council, hosted by the Islamic Development Bank, was held on 8 December 2015 at the Islamic Development Bank Headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was attended by seven central bank governors and heads of regulatory and supervisory authorities, as well as 14 senior representatives from among the Council and Full members of the IFSB, representing 17 countries. The meeting, which was chaired by the Governor, Bank Indonesia, H.E. Agus D.W. Martowardojo, was also attended by the President of the Islamic Development Bank.

The newly admitted members are:

Associate Member

1.            Bank of England

Observer Members

2.            National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic

3.            Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan

4.            Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Egypt 

5.            Amana Bank, Sri Lanka

6.            Ziraat Katilim, Turkey

The Council also resolved to approve the upgrade of the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) from an Associate to a Full Member. With this upgrade, the NBK becomes a Member of the IFSB Council, which is the highest governing body of the IFSB. This brings the membership of the IFSB Council to 23 members who are the central bank Governors from 22 countries, as well as the President of the IDB. The membership of the IFSB is divided into three categories, namely Full Member, Associate Member and Observer Member. The Full Membership, which is the sole membership with voting rights, is available to the financial sector supervisory authorities of each sovereign country.

To date, the 189 members of the IFSB consist of 65 supervisory and regulatory authorities from the banking, capital markets and Islamic insurance (Takaful) sectors from 47 jurisdictions, as well as eight international inter-governmental organisations, and 116 market players (financial institutions, professional firms and industry associations).

The full list of the IFSB members is available on the IFSB website http://www.ifsb.org/membership.php. The roles and responsibilities of the members (by category) are detailed in the IFSB Articles of Agreement that can be downloaded from the website.