Terrorist financing and perceptions on islamic financial institutions / Normah Omar.

The terrorist attacks of the United States (US) World Trade Center on September 11, 2001; Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005; London Bombing in 2005; and the Mumbai bombing in 2008 had left some very detrimental global perceptional impacts on the Muslims and Islamic financial institutions globally. As most of these attacks were carried out by some militant Islamicists, understandably there were a lot of public skepticism against the Muslims and the religion of Islam. In the United States of America (USA) for example, following the attacks on September 11, the US government enacted the USA PATRIOT Act, which is basically designed to prevent the use of the US financial system to help fund terrorism and other crimes. The enactment of the PATRIOT Act 2001 had accelerated the establishment of similar laws globally. In Malaysia particularly, the Anti Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act was introduced in 2001 and amended in 2007 to include more emphasis on the terrorist financing aspects. By virtue of these Acts, terrorist financing is a criminal offence. To date, most writings implicating Islamic financial institutions with terrorist financing are either written by Western authors or the articles are perceptional in nature. This conceptual paper reviews previous studies on this topic, examines related legislations, progresses to propose research strategies on how to counter these perceptional biases and highlights preventive mechanisms adopted by the Malaysian Islamic financial institutions in mitigating and detecting terrorists financing

Credit card debt management: a profile study of young professionals / Rashidah Ahmad and Normah Omar.

As at 30th June 2012, the total amount of credit cards outstanding bills stood at RM 29.9 billion. The 2010 statistics issued by the Department of Solvency Malaysia, showed a worrying trend of young Malaysians who were below the age of 30 being declared bankrupt due to credit card debts. Some 209 or 46.04% out of a total of 454 Malaysians who were declared bankrupt in 2010 are among those aged “30 years and below. This study distributed questionnaire to participants of “debt-ridden” young professionals in managing their financial situation under the Central Bank of Malaysia. The aim of this study is to explore the demographic profiles of these respondents, to identify spending habits as well as to examine participants’ affordability to pay their credit card bills. This study also hopes to explore viable strategies to curb the respondents’ dependence and possible misuse of their credit cards for their day-to-day transactions. The findings implicate some very challenging trends. First, the increasing use of credit cards on entertainment and online shopping among young professionals. Secondly, is the respondents’ inclination to make “minimum payments” on their outstanding credit card bills. Thirdly, many respondents “own” more than three credit cards during the data collection period. The fourth finding highlights the “trend” that respondents owe high amount of outstanding accumulated credit card debts when the due date expires. Finally, it is also observed that the respondents have the habit of borrowing from others. Onsite observations further implicate that some of these participants desperately need help to kick out their habit of credit card dependence and misuse. Furthermore, some of these young professionals are not even aware of the negative impact of possible insolvency and bankruptcy status on their future undertakings

Corporate Integrity System: Comparative Analysis of Two Giant Government Linked Companies

AbstractThis study aims to assess the level of companies’ commitment to comply with a corporate integrity system in their day to day operation. Based on 105 and 230 questionnaire distributed and received from employees in Company A and Company B respectively, the findings revealed that for Infrastructure dimension, both GLCs score below 50% indicating that these companies may need to invest in financial and intangible resources annually to the ethic function as a part of organization's budget cycle. Overall, both companies score more than 50% indicating their progress towards higher level of corporate integrity system

Malaysian DNFBPs’ Perceptions on Awareness, Perceived Impact and Views on the AML/CFT Requirements

AbstractMoney laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) continues to be an on-going threat which has the potential to adversely affect the country's reputation and investment climate which may lead to economic and social consequences. A 2004 amendment to the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act (AMLATFA), 2001 has redefined “Reporting Institutions” (RIs) to include accountants, auditors, lawyers and other selected professionals. Previous studies on the AML/CFT in Malaysia (e.g. Mohamed & Ahmad, 2012 and Shanmugam & Yhanasegaran, 2008) in general did not specifically address the issue of DNFBPs’ awareness, perceived impact and views on the AML/CFT requirements. Our study is the first in our knowledge to evaluate the understanding on the AML/CFT requirements in Malaysia from the perspective of the accountants

Critical financial analysis of Islamic bank in the Philippines: case study of Amanah Islamic bank

The inspiration to delve into the contemporary status of Islamic banking and finance in the Philippines has led this study to analyze the financial condition of Amanah Islamic Bank (AIB) and recommend improvements in its financial performance. This secondary databased study utilizes library research and content analysis, particularly using the capital, asset, management, earnings, and liquidity parameters. AIB is the rebranded version of Al-Amanah Islamic Investment Bank of the Philippines. At present, AIB has nine branches and is the only authorized bank in the Philippines to offer Islamic banking products and services. Presidential Decree No. 542, which was signed in 1974, directed the AIB to implement an Islamic model of banking and financing, particularly following the "no interest principle" and partnership mechanisms. However, this order was not completely implemented because "conventional banking" dominated the AIB's operation. This study contributes to the continuing effort to convert AIB into a full-fledged Islamic bank and simultaneously contend with the emerging growth of the banking industry. © 2018, Kolej University Islam Sultan Azlan Shah

NAfMA as a value creation tool: Malaysian scenario / Suzana Sulaiman, Normah Omar and Ibrahim Kamal Abdul Rahman

The National Award for the Management Accounting (NAfMA) Best Practice 2004 is the first of its kind in the Asian region. For a start, NAfMA 2004 is open to Malaysian Multi-national and Public-Listed Companies (PLC). As Malaysia strives to become fully industrialized, it is believed that embracing best practices in management accounting will ensure that businesses are using the appropriate tools and techniques to achieve optimum business performance, resulting in value creation. Through the spirit of sharing best practices and benchmarking amongst with other organisations it will also enable companies in Malaysia to move towards world-class recognition. The NAfMA Best Practice is assessed on the basis of the management accounting best practice conceptual framework proposed by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). The participating companies were assessed on criteria, which include management accounting information, leadership, resource management, customer/market focus, partnership management, value creating, business results/performance measurement and corporate social responsibility. These criteria were finalized after numerous discussions between several parties involved. An independent panel of assessors made a second site visit to those short-listed companies. Recommendations resulting from a team of independent assessors were then put to the panel of judges before the recipients were decided

The effectiveness of e-procurement system in reducing lobbyist involvement in public procurement / Jamaliah Said, Marlina Wati Ishak and Normah Omar.

Corruption represents a major leakage of public fund in many countries in the world. It has been highlighted that the involvement of unnecessary lobbying in the procurement contributes to the corruption. As a result, the Malaysian government has introduced the E-Procurement System to improve its services and to promote transparency in the procurement processes. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of the E-procurement system in reducing the lobbyist involvement in one of the largest statutory bodies in Malaysia. For this qualitative study, five procurement officers and three suppliers who had been using the system since it was implemented in the year 2011 were interviewed. Document review was also performed to access information on the processes in the system in support of the feedback from the respondents. The interview results showed that the E-procurement system was effectively implemented in largest statutory body (ACED) and reduced the involvement of lobbyist in the procurement processes. Both groups of informants agreed that the E-procurement system was an effective mechanism to curb procurement fraud because the processes were automated and transparent at every stage. Each process was conducted by a different person and it promoted integrity and transparency in the system. The E-Procurement System was found to be effective in preventing direct communication between the procurement officers and suppliers, therefore reducing the risk of lobbying. The E-procurement System was also bound by specific laws and regulations governing both parties, to which they must comply. The present study concludes that the system can reduce the unethical behaviour by lobbyist and that it should be implemented

The Effect Of Ethical Culture Leadership Qualities, Entrepreneurship And Innovation On The Performance Of Government Linked Companies

Government-linked companies (GLCs) play an essential role in the expansion of the Malaysian economy. GLCs are contributing a significant percentage of the nation’s gross capital formation and National Gross Domestic Product and they have been regarded as instruments of national growth and supplementing government’s effort in promoting social and economic goals. Nevertheless, the performance of GLCs remains as a major concern. Although many research have been done on organisations and enterprises there is lack of research done on GLCs’ performance. Previously, the performance of GLCs in Malaysia has been affected by the poor performance of its key companies such as Proton Holdings Berhad and Malaysia Airline System (MAS). Hence, this study attempts to examine on the effect of ethical culture practices, leadership qualities, entrepreneurship orientation, and innovation existence towards the performance of Malaysian GLCs. In this study, the data is gathered via questionnaires survey collected from 102 state and federal level GLCs. The results of coefficient of independent variables showed that leadership qualities and innovation are positively correlated with organisational performance. This study suggests to improve the performance of GLCs through emphasizing on leadership qualities and placing high emphasis on innovation

Managing strategic alignment using the balanced scorecard: A Malaysian company’s experience

The main purpose of this study is to explore the used of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a strategic alignment tool in a large Malaysian organization using the qualitative case study approach.This study indicates that the BSC, through its performance indicators helps to partially improve the alignment of a company’s strategic objectives and strategies between the top management and the lower management levels.It also helps to align the various divisions in the organizations at the strategic level.However, full alignment is still a long way to achieve.This study highlighted the importance of awareness, common understanding and systematic alignment process in managing the alignment process and issue faces by the management in the process

Financing policy adopted by companies and their financial performance: a case study on the Malaysian groom big (2) companies / Sharifah Fadzlon Abdul Hamid, Suzana Sulaiman and Normah Omar.

This paper intended to study the financing policy adopted by small and medium sized companies (SME). The finding was as a result from a consultancy programme conducted on five out of thirteen Groom Big (2) companies. These companies were identified and selected by the Malaysian Productivity Corporation (MPC), with the initiative to encourage, nurture and develop these SME entrepreneurs to become bigger entity and thus to enable them to compete domestically and globally. The companies comprised of food, pharmaceutical products, fixtures and parts for local car manufacturers as well as multi-service. The study focused more on the financial accounting statements of the companies, in particular the financing of these companies and its performance ratio. Additional information were collected during site and through focus group interviews. The analysis of the financial statements were conducted over three years and the results showed that the financing policy adopted by the Groom Big Companies varies and have different effects on the financial performance