Sunday, October 18, 2009

Swiss Reinsurance gets retakaful licence in KL

By Jason Ng
SWISS Reinsurance Company Ltd received a composite licence to write retakaful business and has opened a so-called dedicated operation in Kuala Lumpur.
The licence, granted by Bank Negara Malaysia, will allow Swiss Re to offer both family and general retakaful solutions to clients worldwide, according to the company's website yesterday.
"This new licence will allow us to consolidate and enlarge the scope of our efforts by also providing general retakaful insurance," Swiss Re said in the statement, adding that the retakaful operation would be headed by Marcel Omar Papp.
The global takaful market could reach US$7 billion (RM23.75 billion) by 2015, Swiss Re said of the future prospects of the business and in 2007, some US$1.7 billion worth of takaful premium were written.
Takaful is an insurance concept based on Islamic principles, providing mutual cooperation, between groups of participants. While the Quran does not object to the concept of insurance, the conventional model of insurance involves the element of gharar (uncertainty), maisir (gambling) and riba (interest), all of which are forbidden in Islam.

(The Malaysian Reserve, Oct 9, 2009, Page 1)

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