Malaysia-based Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) is set to organise two public hearings on exposure drafts of core principles for Islamic finance regulation and guidance note on liquidity risk management.

The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) will host the first one on November 30 at the Gulf Hotel, whereas the second one will be held on December 16 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

IFSB members, Islamic financial community and other interested parties are invited to attend the hearings for the two new exposure drafts on "Core Principles for Islamic Finance Regulation- Banking Segment" (ED-17) and "Guidance Note on Quantitative Measures for Liquidity Risk Management in Institutions Offering Islamic Financial Services" (GN-6).

The hearings are held within the public consultation period of the documents, and are part of the IFSB due process for the development of standards and guiding principles as outlined in the "IFSB Guidelines and Procedures for the Preparation of Standards/Guidelines".

The main objective of the Core Principles for Islamic Finance Regulation is to provide a set of Core Principles - along with associated assessment methodology - for the regulation and supervision of the Islamic financial services industry (IFSI).

It takes into consideration the specificities of the sector in the banking segment, the lessons learned from the financial crisis, and complementing the existing international standards, principally the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision issued by Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

The ED of GN-6 aims to complement global liquidity standards (such as LCR and NSFR) and other developments on liquidity risk management for the IFSI. It will help the regulatory and supervisory authorities to provide a level-playing field to the Islamic financial services in the application of liquidity standards vis-a-vis their conventional counterparts, and thus will promote the sound management of liquidity risk in the sector.

The Exposure Drafts, which are available for download from the IFSB website (www.ifsb.org), were issued on October 31, and public consultation will end on January 5 next year. - TradeArabia News Service