KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 17): The Malaysian Takaful Association (MTA) on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Iranian Insurance Research Centre (IRC) to collaborate on knowledge-based takaful enrichment programmes.

MTA chief executive officer Mohd Radzuan Mohamed said the collaboration will help to develop the industry and strengthen Malaysia’s position to best support the multi-trillion dollar global Islamic economy.

“Collaboration between the association like MTA around the world is not new. What is new this time around is that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had early last year issued a Financial Sector Blueprint (FSB) 2022-2026,” he told Bernama after the MOA ceremony here.

“(With the blueprint), BNM basically aspires to achieve certain strategic objectives, one of which is to promote advanced Islamic finance leadership not only internally but also to the world,” he said.

He said the collaboration is the result of previous work to ensure that they engage with associations and institutes around the world to propagate Islamic finance, especially takaful.

The collaboration enables both parties to leverage the experience of each other. They will cooperate on knowledge cultivation, training and education, and exchange data intelligence. At the same time, they will foster an international relationship between domestic insurance industries with international ones.

It will also seek to strengthen and expand the scientific relations of IRC with related academic institutions in the area of joint scientific journals, joint multilateral scientific conferences and international specialised workshops.

Meanwhile, IRC chief executive officer Prof Mohammad Mahdi Asgari said Iran has 40 years of Islamic banking experience and all the banks are Islamic and Shariah-compliant, but takaful is not implemented in the country.

“But in our new government, the Economic Affairs minister said that takaful should be implemented as soon as possible,” he said.

Iran currently has 37 insurance companies, with about 10 ready to offer takaful products, he said.

“We studied and surveyed takaful models from our insurance companies. If they (the models) are Shariah-compliant and according to the legal framework of Iran’s insurance industry,we will permit them to sell takaful products,” he said.

According to the Islamic Financial Services Board, Malaysia is the third-largest takaful market globally  with a vibrant Islamic finance ecosystem that includes Islamic financial institutions, regulators, Shariah-compliant corporates, Islamic fund managers, and halal industries that seek takaful products.