Millennium Information Solution, a top core banking solutions provider for the $2.5 trillion global Islamic finance sector, has recently launched its international operations at the Dubai Internet City.

Global Islamic financial assets reached $2.5 trillion in 2018, of which Islamic banking assets represents 70 percent, or $1.72 trillion. Sukuk issuance is expected to grow to $115 billion in 2020, despite the current crisis, according to credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

The move comes as the global Islamic banking sector continues to defy the downward trend and expands its global presence. According Thomson Reuters, Islamic finance assets is expected to reach$3.9 trillion (Dh14 trillion) by 2023, up from $2.2 trillion (Dh8trillion) in 2016, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

Islamic banks with strong Shariah compliance and real asset-backed lending, have emerged stronger after every financial crisis that have exposed the weaknesses of the conventional banking systems. That’s why, the number of Islamic banks have been and will continue to grow in the coming years. A solid core banking solution could help Islamic banks perform better.

The Islamic banks and financial institutions, however, will need to migrate to a more advanced artificial intelligence-powered core banking system that can cope with the financial technology-enabled products and solutions that are disrupting the banking and payment systems globally.

“With the Fourth Industrial Revolution disrupting the financial sector, the Islamic banks need to migrate to the new-generation core banking solutions that could synchronise with the new fintech solutions without disrupting the overall banking system,” Mahmud Hossain, Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Information Solution FZ-LLC (MISL).

“That’s why, we have set up our international operations at the Dubai International City to approach majority of the Islamic banks and help them migrate to our state-of-the-art core Islamic banking system – Ababil – a game-changing solution for the Shariah-compliant banking sector.

“We believe, most of the existing core banking systems will become obsolete with increased fintech disruption and banks will have to migrate to the next-generation systems in the next 3-5 years. Those who fail to do so, will lose the race and lose business in the more competitive financial world.”

Ababil, which has been implemented in 500 branches of 14 banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), is an end-to-end advanced core-banking solution for Islamic banking that covers all areas of Shariah-compliant banking. The main engine of Ababil was ground up designed as an Islamic Shariah compliant solution, not a by-product of a conventional banking application. Today, Ababil, which is tested at IBM’s Bangalore Laboratory and backed by Oracle RDBMS and Open platforms, is used by some of the major Islamic banks and Islamic financial institutions.

Banks aiming for growth in the Islamic banking sector need dedicated Islamic core banking systems with sharia-compliant capabilities, according to Gartner. “Vendor offerings have now matured to the point that they offer true differentiation via adaptation to the sharia board, business functions and Islamic localization,” Gartner said in a report published earlier.

Ababil, the flagship product of MISL, is one such product that also has upgraded its product suites to cater to the future needs of the Islamic banks using the state-of-the-art technology platforms such as Java micro services and Kafka, a distributed streaming platform.

Ababil offers wide range of software solutions to Islamic banks and Islamic financial institutions in order to tackle all their operational requirements. Ababil’s state-of-the-art technology, highly integrated front and back office system comes with a comprehensive solution package along with the ability to provide modular Islamic banking solutions which addresses all business functionalities of the client banks and financial institutions.- TradeArabia News Service