Standard Chartered Malaysia lands mandate for first new Shariah-compliant ASEAN Passport Fund
4 August 2015, Kuala Lumpur – Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Berhad (Standard Chartered Malaysia) has been mandated to be the trustee for the newly-launched Maybank Bosera Greater China Asean Equity-I Fund, the first Shariah-compliant ASEAN Passport Fund approved by the Securities Commission of Malaysia.
The fund was launched by Maybank Asset Management Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Maybank Asset Management Group Berhad (Maybank AM) on 27 April 2015 with the aim of providing an investment fund that invests in Shariah-compliant assets that can be distributed directly to investors in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
This fund is the first Shariah compliant ASEAN Passport fund under the umbrella of the ASEAN Collective Investment Scheme (CIS) launched in 2013. ASEAN CIS is a cross-border fund passporting framework that includes Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, where fund managers operating in these three markets can distribute fund products cross border to retail investors through a more streamlined process to a set of common standards formally agreed to by the Securities Commission of Malaysia, Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand, and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
The launch of this first-of-its-kind Shariah-compliant fund is timely, given the burgeoning Islamic wealth management market, which is currently valued at over USD60 billion in assets under management (AuM) and expected to reach USD77 billion by 2019.
Margaret Harwood-Jones, Head, Investors & Intermediaries, Transaction Banking, Standard Chartered Bank, said:
“We are very excited to be partnering Maybank in this milestone launch. With a global Muslim population of over 2 billion and conventional investors looking for safe alternative investment schemes, the growth opportunities for this market versus the conventional banking fund market are tremendous.
Our relationship with Maybank AM will allow both parties to fully benefit from the ASEAN Funds Passport scheme’s strong cross-border inflows and, ultimately, offer a more diversified portfolio of investment options to Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai investors.
In today’s dynamic investment landscape, investors looking to invest outside of their home markets want the assurance of partnering experienced institutions such as Maybank and ourselves. We are confident of meeting these needs with our comprehensive securities services offering across trustee, custody and fund services that provides a localised one-stop single touch model for our clients in Malaysia.”
Under the terms of the mandate, Standard Chartered Malaysia will provide fund servicing solutions that include global trustee services and Islamic banking solutions, which can cater to the unique characteristics of the fund. This fund is also expected to be widely distributed across retail markets in not just Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, but also across the vast Standard Chartered footprint.
In addition, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Bank Trustee Berhad (SCBMB Trustee Berhad) and Standard Chartered Bank Singapore will be working together with several of Maybank AM’s subsidiaries to provide custody and fund services out of Singapore, and a trustee for their new feeder fund in Malaysia.
Nor’ Azamin Salleh, CEO of Maybank Asset Management Group Berhad,said:
“We are collaborating with Standard Chartered Bank to customise a set of fund servicing solutions that meets our cross-border distribution requirements under the ASEAN Funds Passport scheme. Standard Chartered has a 140 year history in Malaysia and has local, regional and global expertise and footprint. This makes them an ideal partner for us as we need quick time-to-market solutions to significantly expand the distribution reach of our innovative first-to-market Islamic fund to three of ASEAN’s core markets.
The ASEAN Passport Fund scheme is a boon for Maybank AM because it facilitates greater cross-border offerings of funds, allowing us to easily reach beyond domestic borders. With greater adoption of this scheme, we anticipate significant growth in such retail funds over the next few years. This partnership built today can be the cornerstone of future collaborations that will not only tap into the market potential of one of the world’s more dynamic regions, but will hopefully help to raise standards of commercial and regulatory expertise across the region.”
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