Islamic Financial Services Board appoints Qatar Central Bank governor as chairman (By IFN)

Islamic Financial Services Board appoints Qatar Central Bank governor as chairman

Daily Cover

GLOBAL: The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) has appointed Sheikh Abdullah Saoud Al-Thani, the governor and the chairman of the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) as its new chairman, effective the 1st January 2013. The decision to appoint Sheikh Abdullah was made by IFSB’s existing board of directors on the 13th December 2012. He will take over from Rasheed Al Maraj, who is also the governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain. The board also appointed Mohd Rosli Sabtu, the managing director of Autoriti Monetari Brunei Darussalam, as a deputy governor. Sheikh Abdullah has been the governor of QCB since 2006. He is also the chairman of Qatar’s State Audit Bureau, the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority and the Qatar Development Bank. IFSB also announced the admittance of eight more organizations into its fold, namely: Capital Markets Authority (Kuwait), the Central Bank of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (Northern Cyprus), Financial Reporting Foundation (Malaysia), the Gulf Bond and Sukuk Association (UAE), National Insurance Commission (Nigeria), Prudential BSN Takaful (Malaysia), Safran Stratejik Yönetim ve Teknolojik Danismanlik Hizmetleri (Turkey); and Standard & Poor's (Singapore), while Morocco-based Bank Al-Maghrib was upgraded to full member status. With the addition, the IFSB now has 184 members which comprise 55 supervisory and regulatory authorities from the banking, capital markets and Takaful sectors in 41 jurisdictions, 121 market players and eight international inter-governmental organizations.