EDUCATION - Islamic banking suffers from shortage of skilled professionals

Singapore - Islamic finance consistent with sharia law was poised to continue its growth, but the industry had to overcome a large dearth of skilled professionals and other challenges to succeed, banking experts warned Wednesday. 

'The fast growth of Islamic financial institutions so far isn't followed by sufficient supply of human resources,' Halim Alamsyah, deputy governor of Bank Indonesia, said in Singapore. (source)

He said Islamic finance expanded from 137 billion US dollars in total assets in 1996 to 895 billion US dollars in 2010. The amount was forecasted to reach 5 trillion US dollars by 2015.

In Indonesia, the acceleration of the Islamic financial industry has led to a human resources supply gap of more than 30,000 people, Halim Alamsyah said at a seminar on Islamic finance.

'I believe the same phenomenon can also be observed in many countries,' he said, calling for international efforts to tackle the issue, including exchange programmes with more developed markets for Islamic banking.

Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, chairman of Malaysia's securities commission, said the shortage of skilled and experienced professionals in the industry was 'a critical area that needs attention.'

He said to expand its ties to the world economy, Islamic finance also needed to create a wider diversity of products, develop a reliable Islamic finance database and facilitate consistency in the interpretation of sharia and the resolution of disputes. 

Source :  http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1644228.php/Islamic-banking-suffers-from-shortage-of-skilled-professionals - June 9, 2011