It is not surprising that Zeti Akhtar Aziz, governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank, has been named as one of the “World’s Best Central Bankers” in 2009 by Global Finance magazine.
Dr. Zeti, who is the most senior central banker in the world and who is often regarded as the most powerful woman in international finance, got a straight A grade in Global Finance magazine’s 2009 Central Banker Report Card.
Only six other central bankers — those of the Czech Republic, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan and Israel — together with the governor of the European Central Bank, managed the A grade. Zeti and her fellow A graders were commended for their performance in navigating their countries through the worst financial crisis since the 1930s with success in areas such as inflation control, economic growth goals, currency stability, and interest and profit rate management.
Indeed, Zeti, who is globally respected as a banking regulator, should also be highly commended for her stewardship of not only the Malaysian monetary policy management, but also the financial services sector, especially her support for the Malaysian and global Islamic finance industry. Under her watch, the Malaysian Islamic financial services market has gone from strength to strength and is well on track to reach the stated target of 20 percent of total banking market share by 2010. She has overseen the opening up of the Malaysian Islamic finance market to foreign players and is effectively “the central bankers’ central banker.”
Central bankers from two other Muslim countries feature in the rankings — Durmus Yilmaz, governor of the Central Bank of Turkey who scored a B grade and Muhammed Al-Jasser, governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) who scored a C grade.
Zeti has won many accolades over the last few years including the “Central Banker of the Year” award given by The Banker, which is part of the Financial Times Group. In fact, she leads the cause of Islamic finance globally including at the Basel Committee and the International Monetary Fund, and was even invited by the G8 ministers of finance to brief them on developments in Islamic finance.
It is perhaps not surprising that the two most important regulators in financial services in Malaysia are also women — Zeti, the determined but genteel governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, and Zarinah Anwar, the chairman of the Securities Commission of Malaysia (SC), the securities regulator.
Anwar is similarly a strong supporter of the development of a global Islamic capital markets, and has been recognized with several awards for her important contribution and achievements in the development and regulation of the Malaysian capital market, as well as her success in profiling the important work of the SC, not only in Malaysia but on the international stage as well. It was the young lawyer Anwar who helped structure the first sukuk in the global Islamic capital markets for Shell Malaysia in 1990 where she worked at the time.
Only a few weeks ago, another Malaysian woman involved in Islamic finance, Raja Teh Maimunah bt Raja Abdul Aziz, was appointed as the new Global Head of Islamic Capital Market (ICM) at Bursa Malaysia Berhad, the Malaysian stock exchange. Raja Teh, who was the former Chief Operating Officer of Kuwait Finance House (Malaysia), was headhunted to spearhead the expansion and development of the ICM infrastructure, products and services as well as the marketing of ICM products internationally. She will also develop cross border ICM capabilities to facilitate the initiatives of the Malaysia International Islamic Financial Centre (MIFC) in order to support Malaysia’s aim as an Islamic financial hub.
She has hardly been in her new job a month and she has already facilitated the first hard currency international commodity murabaha trade between a Malaysian bank, CIMB Islamic Bank, and a UK bank, Gatehouse Bank, using the Bursa Suq Al-Sila trading platform. This trade took place in September 2009 in London and marks an important psychological milestone for Bursa Malaysia and Raja Teh.
While Malaysian women dominate the Islamic finance landscape from a gender point of view, more women in other markets are also emerging in the sector. At a seminar on “Women in Islamic Finance” held in London last year, Halima Krausen, a Shariah scholar and academic from Germany, explained that women have been actively involved in trade, financial and investment matters throughout Islamic history. In fact, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) worked for a businesswoman, Khadija, who subsequently became his wife.
The lack of a wider empowering of women in Islamic finance has been one of the major disappointments of the industry which is supposedly growing at a rate of between 20 percent to 40 percent, and which is faced with a major human capital bottleneck.
For instance, in Saudi Arabia, where women are faced with increasing levels of joblessness because they are deemed to compete with men for scarce jobs, the empowerment prospects are even more difficult given the social and religious taboos surrounding this subject. Yet many Saudi women, who have outperformed their male counterparts, are frustrated that they cannot compete on a level playing field in the field of business and finance, including Islamic finance.
For, while the likes of Lubna Al-Olayan, Nabila Tunisi, Nahed Taher, Samra Al-Kuwaiz, Nadia Al-Dossary, Sheikha S. Al-Sudairy and a host of others are seemingly succeeding in “a man’s world” because of special circumstances, the lot of the ordinary Saudi women who wish to enter or participate in business or finance, remains frustratingly obfuscated. Sheikha Al-Sudairy, a rising star at HSBC Amanah in the Kingdom, is one of the few Saudi women involved in Islamic banking in a fairly senior position.
Malaysia of course already leads the sector in this respect. It boasts three women CEOs of Islamic finance entities including Jamelah Jamaluddin, the first woman to head a Malaysian Islamic bank, namely, RHB Islamic Bank; Fozia Amanulla, CEO of EONCAP Islamic Bank; and Noripah Kamso, the CEO of CIMB Principal Islamic Asset Management Bhd.
“I have to give due respect to RHB Banking Group and the shareholders for being an equal opportunity employer,” explains Jamaluddin. “My appointment is a valid proof, a woman banker heading an Islamic bank. Yes, previously, banking industry; be it conventional or Islamic was dominated by men. But now the situation has changed. More capable women are being appointed as the captain of the industry. And I’m very fortunate to be able to steer a respected Islamic bank that operates in a jurisdiction, which is well regulated and performed far ahead compared to others. A mixture of men and women steering the industry will definitely benefits the industry in terms of unique individual approach to banking business as well as risk appetite. This development is healthy,” she added.
Women — both Muslim and non-Muslim — are heavily involved in the Islamic finance sector in allied professions such as law firms, intermediation companies and in auditing firms. They include Farmida Bi, Aziza Atta and Fara Mohammed at Norton Rose; Sarah Gooden at Trowers & Hamlins; Stella Cox, managing director of DDCAP Limited, who has almost two decades of experience in Islamic finance, and a host of others.
While the involvement of women in senior positions in Islamic finance is increasing in South East Asia, the situation elsewhere in the GCC countries, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Egypt is much less encouraging.
Even in the other GCC countries and wider markets, the involvement of women banking professionals in the sector are limited. Experienced women bankers, who very often outperform their male counterparts, are privately exasperated that their career chances are governed by the socio-cultural norms imposed by men. They are not satisfied with heading marginalized women-only departments at banks, or women-only financial institutions. They want to be acknowledged as leaders in their fields in the mainstream Islamic or conventional financial services sectors, irrespective of gender or other barriers to entry.
If women are increasingly required to contribute their part to GDP in GCC and Middle Eastern economies, as the governments seem to suggest, many of them argue that they need to operate in a level playing field with access to equal opportunities in order to realize their full potential and contribution.
Malaysia yet again has gone one step further in gender empowerment in an area which has hitherto been another bastion of male domination, namely Shariah (Islamic legal) advisory. Rabiah Adawiah Binti Engku Ali, an academic at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, is the first registered woman Islamic finance Shariah adviser with the Securities Commission of Malaysia. She also sits on the National Shariah Council of Bank Negara Malaysia. Such an appointment would be anathema in many of the Muslim countries where gender equality and women empowerment is more to do with concessions from insecure men rather than inalienable human rights. The good news is that a new generation of woman Shariah advisories in the Islamic finance sector is emerging in Malaysia.
