Basel Iii: Impact and Challenges to Islamic Financial Institutions: Evidence of Pakistan and Malaysia

The global financial crises 2007 bring about the current banking regulations which stood inadequate to avoid banks from taking in unnecessary risk actions. Therefore, Bank for International Settlement (BIS) and G-20 leaders endorsed a new international standard of banking regulations by revising previous Basel II rule, introduced in 2004, into Basel III in late 2010, so as to enhance the quality including quantity of capital, leverage ratio and liquidity standards, which has become a challenge for nationals to implement these strict reforms under their existing banking system. Parallel with the conventional banking system, for which the Basel Committee formulated Basel framework, Islamic banking introduced in early 1977 to 1980 in Pakistan in response to the decision by the Shariat Bench of Supreme Court, necessitates that the financial system be transformed to operate in conformity with sharia. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Bank Negara Malaysia are the regulator of Islamic banks and full member of IFSB. The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) established in 2002 in Malaysia as an international standard-setting organization to enforce the international regulatory and supervisory guidelines for Islamic financial organizations along with other standard setting bodies such as AAOIFI and ISDB to achieve this objective. The IFSB promotes the stability and soundness of the Islamic financial institutions by issuing guiding standards and prudential regulations for the industry, The IFSB applied Basel standards in the context of Islamic banks and its operating models. This paper critically evaluates Islamic financial institution’s regulatory and supervisory structures particularly for Pakistan and Malaysia and examines financial position after implementing Basel Accord rules. Study suggests a positive impact in case of both countries.

Advancements in Interstitial Brachytherapy

In recent years, interstitial brachytherapy implantation has become the treatment of choice for early stage prostate cancer patients. The popularity of this modality is due to the fact that five-and ten-year disease control rates using brachytherapy are equal to those of surgery, whereas, the toxicity and side-effects are perceived to be lower. Recently, a true linear source model RadioCoilTM103Pd has been introduced to overcome the shortcomings of traditional ―seed‖ type interstitial prostate brachytherapy implants, such as migration and clumping of the seeds. However, the existing prostate treatment planning systems and TG-43U1 have not been updated to perform dose calculation and parameterization respectively, for implant with linear sources greater than 1.0cm in length. Due to these limitations, the innovative design of RadioCoilTM103Pd could not be fully implemented for clinical applications. In this research, treatment planning aspect of elongated RadioCoilTM103Pd sources is investigated. In addition, accuracy of existing TG-43U1 recommended dosimetric parameters in polar coordinate systems, a modification in radial increment to improve the accuracy and modification of TG-43U1 parameterization in to cylindrical coordinate systems is also investigated. This work resulted in a calculational method and modification in TG-43U1 parameters for accurate dose calculation around elongated sources. Experimental, Thermolumenance Dosimetry TLD and Monte Carlo simulation techniques were employed in this investigation. This work was successfully completed and led to a new Task Group, TG-143 from American Association of Medical Phyicists in Medicine, AAPM, to provide guidelines for clinical application of elongated sources and extend our findings for other elongated sources.