KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 — The potential of cryptocurrency in Islamic finance is looking bullish, driven by the forward shift towards digital economy in line with the new normal, according to Datuk Dr Mohd Daud Bakar who chairs Bank Negara Malaysia’s Shariah Advisory Council.
He said cryptocurrency may be deemed a new thing in Islamic finance, and described its potential in the new normal as “many low hanging fruits in the segment”.
“We are not only facing a crisis, but also a new normal, and digital has become very much close to the heart and mind of so many people due to the restriction in movement.
“For me, crypto is neither a conundrum or perception. It is a matter of our ability to make it easy for people to understand, because at the moment, it is a new thing and people tend to think it is very much a conundrum and matter of perception,” he said during the SCxSC Fintech Conference 2020 here, today.
Mohd Daud who also chairs the Securities Commission of Malaysia’s Shariah Advisory Council was one of the speakers in the panel session entitled “Crypto Conundrum In Islamic Finance: Digital Assets and Shariah Compliance”.
While the whole world, including Malaysia, are embarking on digital transformation in doing businesses due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he said currency remained among the things being left out.
“Currency is still not digital, it still needs the whole ecosystem to transfer it from one party to another. Sometimes it takes days.
“It made the whole thing not efficient. The digital economy has been growing very good and interesting but the last mile argument is not there. So we are fighting for the last mile, which is the ability for digital currency to make the whole thing more efficient.
“It is not about a new currency altogether, perhaps the government could make their own fiat currency into digital and this is the basic crypto, a stable coin backed by cryptography,” he said.
— Bernama
