Uzaimah Ibrahim

Corporate Social Responsibility of Islamic Banks in Malaysia: Arising Issues

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) term has rapidly developed and is no longer a strange concept among business communities. As part of business entities and concurrently guided by Sharī‘ah principles, Islamic banks face even more expectations in performing CSR as Islamic financial institutions. On top of that, although Malaysia is at the vanguard in the development of Islamic finance especially in Islamic banking industry, there is a lack of discussion on issues pertaining CSR applications of Islamic banks. Using interview data with top management executives and supported by observations and document reviews, this study attempts to disclose arising issues regarding CSR applications of Islamic banks in Malaysia. It was found that there are significant issues that need to be addressed in order to ensure the efficiency of Islamic banks CSR applications especially regarding corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD), CSR department and CSR fund.

MURABAHAH SUKUK STRUCTURE: THE SHARIAH CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD

Murabahah Sukuk is an Islamic trust contract which includes a disclosure of the original cost and the mark up. Murabahah in Islamic jurisprudence means a contract of sale for the equivalent price of the subject matter which includes its cost along with a known additional profit. The paper discusses issues related to Murabahah Sukuk financing. It also provides the structural overview of Murabahah in terms of Sukuk issuances. The paper highlighted three different ways of structuring Murabahah Sukuk, it looks into the structure of Murabahah for asset acquisition, Murabahah with Inah transaction and lastly Murabahah with tawarruq transaction. The paper concluded that according to the general rules of Shari’ah, Murabahah Sukuk should not be traded at secondary market due to the fact that it involved the sale of debt which is forbidden. However, Murabahah Sukuk might be negotiated at the secondary market if it forms a small part of a larger portfolio comprising other negotiable instruments such as Ijarah Sukuk, Musharakah, and Mudarabah Sukuk certificates.

An Issue on Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP) No 600 for Islamic Letter of Credit

Islamic banks in Malaysia offer Letter of Credit (LC) Wakalah (agency) and LC Murabahah (cost-plus) as two of their main trade finance facilities. LC is the product of International Chamber of Commerce, the world business organization based in Paris and it is governed by the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP) No. 600 (UCP 600). The objective of this paper is to clarify an issue on a few articles of the UCP 600 as the governing rules of LC Wakalah and LC Murabahah. At the same time, this paper discusses the practice of some Islamic banks in Malaysia in facing this issue. This study adopts the qualitative method as the main research methodology where both the primary and the secondary data are used. For the primary data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with bankers who are directly involved with the operation of Islamic LCs. As the result, this paper discovers an issue on the UCP 600 for Islamic LCs that is the issue of insufficiency in dealing solely with documents for LC Wakalah and LC Murabahah without checking the conditions of goods. This paper analyzes this issue by determining whether it is in line with the Shariah principles. Lastly, a solution to resolve the issue on the UCP 600 for Islamic LCs is recommended to Bank Negara Malaysia.