Malaysia, for one, has announced its co-operation with Bahrain and Dubai, to jointly cooperate and develop Islamic banking and finance in the region. At the market level, we have also seen a continuing trend of regional expansion by Islamic financial institutions beyond the traditional markets toward newly emerging centres in Asia. Such changes are happening, despite the challenging environment that firms are currently operating in. One of the most daunting of the changes required for policymakers and regulators is the change in regulations and taxation rules to provide an equitable environment for the operation of Islamic finance within the overall financial market framework. Within Hong Kong, with the wealth of expertise drawn from members of the TMA, recommendations were put up and analysed by the Government as a priority in its comprehensive tax review. The Government has concluded that the legal system in Hong Kong is flexible enough to meet the demands of Islamic finance transactions. This is because, with our robust rule of law and our simple tax structure free of capital or interest gains tax, there have only been a minimal number of taxation issues that have to be dealt with. The legislation on tax also gives power to the Government to grant tax exemptions where necessary to those who apply for it. The legal architecture in Hong Kong therefore lends itself well to Islamic finance.

And in response, the Bank of England had to intervene on financial stability grounds through temporary purchases of long-dated UK government bonds. While these new risks and vulnerabilities are evident, the non-bank financial sector has remained largely stable in recent months, despite the stress in the banking sector that emerged in March. Fund investors shifted their exposure from higher to lower risk assets, especially from high-yield corporate to government bond funds. Portfolio de-risking has also been evident in insurance corporations and pension funds, as higher interest rates have reduced incentives for the non-bank financial sector to search for yield. But there are no grounds for complacency here. Structural vulnerabilities from liquidity mismatches and leverage remain elevated despite recent de-risking. Moreover, bank and non-bank financial institutions can be closely interconnected through funding channels, ownership linkages and common risk exposures. The non-bank financial sector remains particularly exposed to asset price corrections and credit risk should corporate sector fundamentals deteriorate substantially. In addition, non-banks’ exposure to property markets has increased markedly in recent years, rendering institutions vulnerable to ongoing price corrections in real estate markets. Fragile risk sentiment and elevated vulnerabilities in parts of the non-bank financial sector could amplify negative shocks. Strengthening the resilience of non-bank financial intermediation Given the vulnerabilities in the non-bank financial sector, it is vital to further enhance its resilience, also from a systemic perspective. To date, the macroprudential policy framework has mainly focused on the banking sector, while the policy framework for non-bank financial institutions still needs to be enhanced.