NEW YORK, NY — Kamakura Corporation reported Wednesday that it had completed an agreement to implement the Kamakura Corporation suite of solutions for Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad, an Islamic bank based in Malaysia that has been in operation since July 1983, for its balance sheet management, funds transfer pricing, and liquidity management processes.
Bank Islam was established primarily to assist the financial needs of Malaysia’s Muslim population, and has since extended its services to the broader non-Muslim population fulfilling its “Banking-for-All” principle.
Bank Islam is the first Shariah-based banking institution in Malaysia and South-East Asia, and has been playing the leading role in the development of the nation’s Islamic banking industry. In fact, it has provided technical assistance in the setting up of several Islamic institutions in the Asian region such as Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. With over 70 innovative and sophisticated Islamic banking products and services, Bank Islam offers a comprehensive range of Shariah-compliant banking and financial solutions to its more than five million customers.
Primarily a retail bank with consumer banking constituting more than 70% of total financing, Bank Islam’s list of products ranges from the traditional financing, savings and investment solutions exclusively for individual customers, to banking and financial solutions designed to fulfil the fast-changing financial needs of customers from all categories including those related to micro financing, wealth management, capital market, and treasury.
The project will involve the complete implementation of the balance sheet management and funds transfer pricing solutions and followed a comprehensive evaluation exercise involving a complete proof of concept. Dr. Clement Ooi, EVP and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific Operations, Kamakura Corporation stated, “Bank Islam had a very clear understanding of its risk management and liquidity compliance needs. The vendor selection process had an extensive testing routine, and the Kamakura suite of solutions was an apt fit.
“Bank Islam not only has a range of intriguing products, but also a transaction volume that necessitated in them seeking a modular and integrated solution. The project will provide the bank with accurate assessment of transaction cashflows that can then be used for gap, duration, and mismatch management, as well as an accurate assessment of the margins associated with the transaction. All of these can be modelled based on different market conditions implying that the bank is prepared for any adverse movements in market conditions.”
Dr. Clement Ooi further stated, “Bank Islam has selected an integrated, holistic computation engine, and this certainly will be the platform upon which the bank will build its integrated risk framework. The bank will be one of the first to be able to generate both historical and forward-looking views of the balance sheet, a transaction-level understanding of the profit margins and a good appreciation of customer, product, business unit, and organisational profit and value dynamics.
“Kamakura Corporation has the full suite of risk management and regulatory compliance solutions including IAS39 / IFRS9, Basel II/III, Market risk, Credit risk, ALM, FTP, Liquidity Risk, Capital Management & Planning, Credit Estimation, Margin Management and Financial Accounting all through one integrated, holistic computation engine, and this certainly will be the platform upon which the bank will build its integrated risk framework.”
Martin Zorn, President and COO for Kamakura Corporation, said Tuesday, “The successful implementation of the balance sheet management, funds transfer pricing, and liquidity compliance project in Bank Islam is a clear indicator that banks are no longer looking for fragmented solutions for risk and compliance, but seek to adopt a customised framework that allows for the repeated use of data loaded once for various aspects of risk and compliance. It is a testimony to the credentials of Kamakura’s subject matter experts. Kamakura is well-positioned to meet the burgeoning regulatory demands imposed on financial institutions in the region and has the wherewithal to keep pace with regulation; as a matter of fact, what is currently being introduced as risk regulation has been available in Kamakura Risk Manager for the past ten years.”
To follow risk commentary by Kamakura on a daily basis, please follow Kamakura CEO Dr Donald van Deventer (www.twitter.com/dvandeventer), Kamakura President Martin Zorn (www.twitter.com/riskmgrhi), Kamakura Principal Risk Officer Suresh Sankaran (www.twitter.com/sureshkamakura), and Kamakura’s official twitter account (www.twitter.com/KamakuraCo).
About Kamakura Corporation
Founded in 1990, Honolulu-based Kamakura Corporation is a leading provider of risk management information, processing and software. Kamakura was named to the World Finance 100 by the Editor and readers of World Finance magazine in 2012 as well as 2017. In 2010, Kamakura was the only vendor to win 2 Credit Magazine innovation awards, and it has won this award 3 years running. Kamakura Risk Manager, first sold commercially in 1993 and now in version 8.1, is the first enterprise risk management system with users focused on credit risk, asset-liability management, market risk, stress testing, liquidity risk, IFRS/IAS compliance, counterparty credit risk, and capital allocation from a single software solution.
The KRIS public firm default service was launched in 2002. The KRIS sovereign default service, the world’s first, was launched in 2008, and the KRIS non-public firm default service was offered beginning in 2011. Kamakura has served more than 220 clients ranging in size from $1.5 billion to $1.6 trillion in assets. Kamakura’s risk management products are currently used in 37 countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Ukraine, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Australia, Japan, China, Korea, India and many other countries in Asia. Learn more at www.kamakuraco.com.
Kamakura has world-wide alliances with Fiserv (www.fiserv.com) and SCSK Corporation (www.scsk.jp/index_en.html) making Kamakura products available in almost every major city around the globe.