MNRB Retakaful Expects 20 Pct Revenue Contribution From Overseas In 2009

Bernama -- MNRB Retakaful Bhd, the country's first retakaful company expects its international business to contribute 20 percent to its total revenue by financial year ending March 31, 2009 from the current 10 percent.

Its president and chief executive officer, Ismail Mahbob, said the target was in line with the company's expansion plan to further tap the overseas takaful markets.

"We are looking to expand our operations to West Asia including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates given the large Muslim population, hopefully by year-end," he told reporters after the official launching of the company, here Monday.

The company currently has business in Indonesia, Brunei and Sri Lanka.

Ismail said MNRB also planned to enter the European market.

He said the potential of takaful and retakaful was huge, with the Islamic financial system being able to successfully integrate with the global financial system.

The company's expansion effort would also be spurred by the BBB+ rating given by Fitch Ratings recently.

MNRB Retakaful today also entered into a memorandum of agreement with the International Shariah Research Academy for Islamic Finance to jointly develop a practical retakaful model that could be adopted by the industry.

The company, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MNRB Holdings Bhd, was granted the licence as the first retakaful operator in Malaysia on Aug 1, 2007.