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.

Genomic and Proteomic Analysis of Common Wheat for Rust Resistance and Baking Quality

Triticum aestivum L. comprising essential nutrients, production and utilization on high scale in Pakistan is the reason of conducting the presence research of 40 local wheat cultivars at Cereal Crop Research Institute Pirsabak, Nowshehra. The wheat cultivars were evaluated for agronomical characters, protein content, baking quality and the screening for leaf rust resistance genes in these cultivars. Results showed that Serin-10 followed by Bakhtawar-92 and Aas-81 wheat cultivars showed overall better agronomical characteristics including days to heading, days to maturity, plant height and grain yield in three years. Days to heading showed significant positive correlation with days to maturity and negative correlation with grain yield. However, grain yield showed weak positive correlation with plant height. Among the wheat cultivars, Hasham, Pak-81 and Suleman-96 were found with superior baking qualities. All loci of glutenin genes i.e. GluB3bcf, GluB3i and GluA3e were confirmed through PCR using specific primers. The highest frequency of glutenin gene GluA3e was observed 85%, followed by GluB3i (82.50 %) and the least frequency was observed in GluB3bcf (50 %) in all forty local wheat cultivars. Four cultivars (Bathoor-08, Chakwal-50, Khyber-87 and Punjab-11) was confirmed with presence of all the l leaf rust resistance genes. Lr36 leaf rust resistance gene was confirmed in most of the wheat cultivars. Response of participants to all organoleptic factors in ascending order was observed as Pak-08 followed by Upaq, Barsat, Nowshera and Serin-10 wheat cultivar. Further it was recommended that other environmental factors including soil type, humidity, temperature, light and others studied for their effect on wheat cultivars physiological characters and yield of these cultivars. Other sub-units of glutenin and leaf rust resistance genes should be screen in these cultivars. Also minerals analysis study can help in true fortification in baking that can help reduce the mal-nutrition problems in the region.