The Islamic Fintech Dialogue (IFD) Conference is an event that focuses on the convergence of the Islamic finance industry with the financial technology (fintech) industry. The inaugural IFD 2017 was attended by more than 300 participants from across the globe. This year’s event took place on the 19th and 20th of February, 2019 at Sasana Kijang, where our CEO (Mark Smalley) was invited to take part in a discussion regarding the topic of competing Vs collaborating:
The panel was moderated by Othman Abdullah of Silverlake with fellow speakers including Daniel Ruppert from Sedania and Ahmad Al Izham Izadin from BIX Malaysia.
In discussing the notion of collaboration, Mark spoke extensively about how blockchain technology is being used by competing organizations as a neutral environment that is allowing these and other entities to collaborate, which in-turn collectively benefits everyone. He cited a good example of this in the formation of the Blockchain Embassy, which is a registered non-profit blockchain consortium with founding members including both Maybank and RHB.
Questions from the audience focused on Project Castor, the blockchain pilot project that was conducted between Neuroware and the Securities Commission of Malaysia.
It’s exciting to see the progress that our Islamic Finance partner Wakaful has been making since first launching at the Takaful Rendezvous in October last year. Wakaful provides a simplified interface for issuing self-managed islamic smart contracts. It’s first use case is exploring how digital wakaf can be used as a governance model for issuing takaful products.
Wakaful was one of several byproducts of the open collaboration that is taking place between Blockchain Embassy members, which is starting to evolve into something much more than just a blockchain consortium with volunteers moving on to work with companies such as Barclays & Wahed Invest.
In partnership with REDmoney, R1 will be conducting our first public seminar of 2019, which is taking place on the 27th of February in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The audience will be taken on a tour starting with the technical foundations from a non-technical point of view through to analysing some of the most popular use cases, such as trade finance and escrow. We’ll also be discussing how this new technology can be applied to Islamic finance – from smart Sukuk to decentralized Takaful models and automated Wakalah.
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