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Malaysian
Bank Launches First Islamic Credit Card in Asia
By
Kazi Mahmood, IOL South East Asia correspondent
KUALA LUMPUR, July 25
(IslamOnline) - Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd (BIMB) on Tuesday, July 23,
launched its credit card which scored many firsts in Asia, including
that of being the first Islamic credit card on the Malaysian market.
The Bank Islam Card (BIC),
as it is called, is also the first credit card in Southeast Asia
adopting the Europay-Mastercard-Visa (EMV) Smart Card with the
“chip” technology for safety, Bernama News Agency reported.
The card is named Bank
Islam Card, avoiding the word “credit” in it to comply with
Islamic shariah. The card is also the first credit card being
introduced in the Islamic banking industry in the world.
The M/Chip, which has been
adopted in more than 18 countries, is MasterCard’s credit/debit
application that enable banks to issue globally inter-operable
MasterCard, Maestro and Cirrus cards. Multos is a high-security,
multi-application open operating system for smart cards, the Star
Newspaper added.
BIC, based on Islamic
shariah, offers both Bank Islam MasterCard Gold and Bank Islam
MasterCard Classic.
Bank Islam chairman Datuk
Mohd Yusoff Nasir said the bank was targeting 55,000 BIC cardholders
by June 2003.
BIC users are allowed to
carry out only halal, or Islamically permissible transactions. The
bank will decline transactions for six categories of non-halal related
activities, including bars, discos, night clubs, purchase of beers,
escort and massage services and gambling, Singapore newspaper, the New
Straits Times reported.
Despite the restrictions,
Bank Islam is confident that it can attract non-Muslim customers due
to the attractive features offered. There will be no compounding
factor for cardholders and the financing charges are on par with other
credit cards offers.
Profit margin for the
cardholders is fixed for the whole tenure (between three and five
years) and the actual profit is charged based on the remaining
balance. The monthly profit is calculated on a monthly basis, based on
outstanding due or total transactions made for that particular month.
The bank also offers free
Group Personal Accident Takaful coverage and “Burial Services” for
the first 50,000 successful applicants for the first year and free
Group Family Takaful Coverage and “Burial Services” for the first
10,000 successful Gold Card applicants.
Deputy Finance Minister
Dr. Shafie Mohd Salleh, who officiated at the launch, urged banks and
financial institutions to use computer chip-based cards in order to
resolve the problem of cloned automated teller machine (ATM) cards.
Last year, a total of
3,816 credit card fraud cases involving RM43 million were recorded and
in the first quarter of this year, there were 1,617 credit card fraud
cases worth RM8.6 million.
The banking industry
reported RM42.5mil in losses from credit card fraud last year,
compared with RM38 million in 2000.
The 3.6 million credit
cardholders in Malaysia charged RM21 billion to their cards last year.
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