Business & Money | Tuesday 20 January, 2015 3:12 pm |

Al Baraka Banking Group organized an advanced lecture titled "structural challenges of the reforms in the financial sector," presented by a US expert Mr. Sarkis D. Yoghourtdjian, Assistant Director of Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation at The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in USA. He discussed control and supervision system structure which is currently applied on the international level in the period after the global financial crisis. He also touched on some of the laws and regulations applicable in the United States and their relationship with the strategy of dealing with classified institutions under the title too big to be allowed to collapse or fall. He also spoke about the overall structure of the control and supervision international system and most recently the Basel III system, and submitted a proposal of 8 points that he sees them as a safe umbrella for the banking system. He also called the supervisory and regulatory authorities to adopt a regulatory and supervisory system based on local cultural and social requirements. He also called for a return to the simple work model of modern banking as represented by financial intermediation and away from the complex business models.

For his part, Mr. Adnan Ahmed Yousif, a member of the Board of Directors and President and Chief Executive of Al Baraka Banking Group welcomed Mr. Sarkis in his second participation in one of the Group's programs, and expressed his thanks to him for accepting the invitation and for the valuable information and excellent analysis provided by him. Mr. Adnan indicated that the organization of this lecture is a part of the Group's commitment to build strong business model that is capable of serving Bahrain community and other communities by the required efficiency and effectiveness.

Mr. Adnan stressed the importance of taking into account the size of the banks to be fit with the economy so that they have the ability to meet the financing needs of economic sectors, according to their natural sizes, and thus have the ability to contribute to the achievement of macroeconomic objectives. He also called for the need to adopt control and supervision systems that are taking into account the social dimensions and the nature and size of the local economies compared to developed economies. In this regard, Mr. Adnan declared the Group's intention to apply a new mechanism designed to measure the direct impact of financing provided by Al Baraka banks on the communities they serve through several macroeconomic axes, including the number of jobs that can be created, improving the quality of life, and other topics that has direct impact on the community, and this will be done through the analysis of the mechanics of the applicable financing applications, and the Group expects that this initiative will receive a good response by our stakeholders and society as a whole.

Mr. Sarkis praised this initiative, which connects the social responsibility directly to the business model, and is thus considered a unique and distinct initiative, hoping that the governments will benefit from these information so they can accurately identify the size of the jobs that are created in the economy, not to mention all other economic benefits.

Al Baraka Banking Group (B.S.C) is licensed as an Islamic wholesale bank by the Central Bank of Bahrain, listed on Bahrain Bourse and Nasdaq Dubai stock exchanges. It is a leading international Islamic banking group providing its unique services in countries with a population totalling around one billion. It is jointly rated BBB+ (long term) / A3 (short term) on the international scale and A+ (bh) (long term) / A2 (bh) (short term) on the national scale with a Stable outlook by Islamic International Rating Agency & Dagong Global Credit Rating Company Limited, and by Standard & Poor’s at BB+ (long term) / B (short term). Al Baraka offers retail, corporate, treasury and investment banking services, strictly in accordance with the principles of the Islamic Shari’a. The authorized capital of Al Baraka is US$ 1.5 billion, while total equity is at about US$ 2 billion.

The Group has a wide geographical presence in the form of subsidiary banking units and representative offices in fifteen countries, which in turn provide their services through over 550 branches. Al Baraka currently has a strong presence in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan, Bahrain, Pakistan, South Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, including two representative offices in Indonesia and Libya.