KUALA LUMPUR: Awang Adek Hussin, deputy finance minister of Malaysia, speaking on the sidelines of the Islamic Financial Planning and Wealth Management Conference in Kuala Lumpur in November 2009, confirmed that two foreign banks have been short listed by Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank, in their applications for new Islamic banking licenses. In April the Malaysian government as part of its on-going financial sector liberalization policy announced that Bank Negara Malaysia would give up to two new Islamic banking licenses to qualified foreign market players to establish new Islamic banks in the country with a paid-up capital of a minimum of $1 billion.
Zeti Akhtar honored
NEW YORK: Zeti Akhtar Aziz, governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank, and the widely-respected and most senior central banker in world finance, was named with five others as the “The World’s Best Central Bankers in 2009” by New York-based Global Finance magazine. Under the criteria of the magazine’s “Central Banker Report Card”, Gov. Zeti scored a straight A, which according to the magazine denotes an excellent performance. The heads of the central banks of Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, Czech Republic and Israel together with the head of the European Central Bank, received the same score as Zeti.