MIFC gets best international Islamic finance centre award

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia International Islamic Financial Centre (MIFC) has been named the “Best International Islamic Finance Centre” at the 2nd Annual London Sukuk Summit Awards of Excellence.

However, the most poignant presentation of the evening was the special award for Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Global Islamic Finance, given posthumously to former Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Jaafar Hussein.

It was Jaafar, governor from June 1985 to May 1994, who famously declared in the late 1980s, his dream of seeing an Islamic banking system operating alongside a conventional one.

The Awards secretariat said in a statement that Jaafar was in reality the architect of the modern Malaysian Islamic financial system.

The June 25 ceremony was to honour a host of regulators and bankers who had contributed significantly to the Islamic banking and financial movement over the last three decades.

The 14 awards handed out included one for Adnan A. Al Musallam, the chairman/chief executive officer of The Investment Dar in Kuwait. He was recognised for his Outstanding Leadership in Islamic Finance.

Adnan started his career in Islamic banking in the 1970s at Kuwait Finance House and over the years trained several of the current generation of senior Islamic bankers in Kuwait.