to enjoy the convenience of banking at anytime and anywhere without the hassle of having to queue at the bank counter or hiring employees to perform daily banking activities. among other benefits of online banking and ibg is that, it offers faster movement of funds compared to payment using cheques. for example, the transfer of funds through ibg performed before noon allows a person to receive the funds within the same day compared to cheques that will take a couple of days to three days. for a beneficiary who has an account within the same bank with the payer, which is known as intrabank, the funds will be credited instantaneously. the program for today includes the showing of three video clips on online banking and ibg, which can be downloaded through youtube and abm and aibim ’ s website, including presentations by two banks. in addition, 17 banks and myclear ( the national payment system operator ) have also set up exhibition booths to showcase their respective electronic payments and funds transfer solutions. this is indeed an opportunity not to be missed as you will be able to learn and ask questions about online banking solutions and sign up for the special offers such as free security tokens or waiver of monthly subscription fee for business internet banking as provided by some of the exhibitors today. bis central bankers ’ speeches in conjunction with today ’ s roadshow, i am pleased to announce that 2 banks namely, bank simpanan nasional and ocbc bank, together with 8 banks in temerloh1 in kuantan will hold their “ open day ” from today, 2 december until this friday, 6 december. during the weeklong “ open day ”, visitors can enquire and learn more about e - payment solutions from the branch staff. the “ open day ” event is open to all businesses and the general public to complement the efforts of the roadshow to reach out to smaller towns and i encourage all participants to take this opportunity to visit the bank branches in kuantan and temerloh. based on the “ open day ” events held in 8 towns in 4 states for the past 2 months, more than 900 ( 911 ) banks ’ customers have signed up to use the online banking services. for information of all participants, to date, cheques are still widely used in our country. based on the last 3 years data, an average of 205 million cheques amounting to about rm2 trillion are issued on an annual basis. in terms of the

has also witnessed a dramatic transformation of the islamic financial landscape. it has been marked by sustained rapid growth and the widening of its geographical reach, resulting in more diverse islamic financial institutions and the generation of a wide spectrum of innovative products, particularly in the high - growth segment of the sukuk market. in this decade, islamic finance has also evolved from being domestic - centric to become increasingly internationalised. in this dynamic environment, the scope of the islamic finance business has expanded from simple retail and trade financing to include private equity, project finance, sukuk origination and issuance, as well as fund and wealth management products. today, the total global size of the islamic financial assets has surpassed more than 1 trillion us dollars. there are now more than 600 islamic financial institutions operating in 75 countries. the vision for the islamic financial system in malaysia was articulated in our first financial sector masterplan that was launched in the year 2001, in which the plans for building the foundations for the islamic financial system were outlined. this included strengthening and diversifying the financial intermediaries in the financial system, building and developing the financial markets, and enhancing the regulatory supervisory, shariah and legal framework. ten years later, in 2011, a new financial sector blueprint was launched, charting the path for islamic finance to transition to become increasingly internationalised, and thus to become more integrated into the mainstream of the global financial system. whilst islamic finance has all the ingredients and the potential to meet the needs of the global economy, the channelling of funds to productive activities in islamic finance today is still largely being carried out through non - participatory contracts, that includes the mark - up sale ( murabahah ) and the lease - based ( ijarah ) structures, which continue to remain essential to cater for financing trade and the purchase of assets. such contracts are similar to lending instruments which expose the islamic financial institutions mostly to credit risk elements. whilst non - risk - sharing contracts will continue to contribute to the future growth of islamic finance, the wider use of risk - sharing transactions and undertakings under participatory finance models have significant scope in evolving a broader representation of islamic financial products that will spur the next phase of industry growth and development. this includes participatory or equity - based contracts such as mudarabah and musharakah that support ventures involving entrepreneurship endeavours. greater use of equity - based models in islamic financial solutions has been observed in the more recent period