Bank Negara Malaysia's Assistant Governor on Islamic finance's next phase at the IFN Asia Forum

Speaking at the Islamic Finance News Asia Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Bank Negara Malaysia Assistant Governor Mohamad Ali Iqbal argued that the question for Islamic finance is no longer whether it can grow but how it serves the real economy. He put global Islamic finance assets at about US$6.2 trillion across more than 2,200 institutions, with roughly 13% growth last year, and noted that Malaysia accounts for about a third of the global sukuk market. He highlighted MYOR-i, described as the first transaction-based Islamic benchmark rate: from January to mid-September 2026 overnight Islamic interbank transactions totalled RM872 billion against RM774 billion in the conventional market, and the central bank plans to mandate MYOR-i for all new Islamic products from July 2027. He also noted that outstanding sovereign Islamic securities have grown from RM374.6 billion in 2020 to about RM644.3 billion by June 2026. His closing message was that impact, not growth alone, should be the measure of success. Why it matters: a deep, domestically governed benchmark is the kind of financial infrastructure that lets a community price and manage its own capital on its own terms.

This is a QeRN summary by Ahmed Qerni. Read the original at Bank for International Settlements (speech): https://www.bis.org/speeches/20261006-keynote-address-islamic-finance-news-asia-forum-2026.