Financial cooperation bears utmost importance for promoting capital mobility, ensuring the interoperability of payment systems, advancing financial literacy, mitigating financial risks, overseeing financial institutions, diversifying financial instruments, and strengthening financial markets. Consequently, regional and global financial cooperation remains essential for ensuring the stability of the international financial system and has the potential to improve global economic and social conditions.

Deepening financial cooperation was identified as the strategic goal of the Strategy. The four output areas envisaged by the Strategy were (i) regulatory and supervisory cooperation, (ii) capital flows, (iii) visibility of financial markets, and (iv) training, R&D activities, and statistics. The COMCEC Strategy is built on two well-defined operational pillars, namely Working Groups and Project Financing, to ensure progress in line with its objectives and expected output areas.

The COMCEC Financial Cooperation Working Group brings together the relevant experts from the Member Countries regularly to produce knowledge, share experiences and best practices, and develop a common understanding as well as approximate policies. The Working Group has held 20 meetings so far. Click for more information on the meetings of the COMCEC Financial Cooperation Working Group.

Furthermore, there are also three forums working to support efforts put forward in this field, namely, the OIC Exchanges Forum, the COMCEC Capital Markets Regulators Forum, and the OIC-COMCEC Central Banks Forum.

(http://www.comcec.org/en/cooperation-areas/financial-cooperation/comcec-financial-cooperation-working-group-meetings/)

Furthermore, there are also three forums working to support efforts put forward in this field, namely, OIC Exchanges Forum, COMCEC Capital Markets Regulators Forum and the OIC-COMCEC Central Banks Forum.

OIC EXCHANGES FORUM

COMCEC initiated the cooperation among Stock Exchanges of the Member States in 2005 and “OIC Member States Stock Exchanges Forum” was established in this regard. The Forum provides a platform for cooperation among exchanges and post-trade institutions, offering the opportunity to share experiences, develop joint projects, and discuss the latest trends in the industry.

The Forum provides a regular cooperation platform for the Stock Exchanges of the Member Countries to share their experiences and knowledge on harmonizing the rules and regulations governing market operations, as well as for increasing the amount of international portfolio investments flowing to the OIC Member States.

The Forum has convened nineteen times till now and has achieved remarkable progress in deepening cooperation among the Stock Exchanges of the Member States.

It has completed its work regarding the S&P OIC/COMCEC Index Fund. The Index, launched on 22 June 2012 in Istanbul, has been designed to provide investors with a Shariah-compliant benchmark that measures the performance of the 50 largest companies from 17 OIC Member States by float-adjusted market capitalization, subject to certain eligibility criteria and country limits.

As the next step, in line with the relevant resolutions of the COMCEC Ministerial Sessions, an important financial product, ‘‘a Fund’’ based on the Index, was developed and then issued in 2021. The Fund aims to enable investors to invest in a single product with a view to enhance investments in OIC capital markets and provides investors with broad diversification, professional management, and transparency. As of August 2, 2022, the Fund started to be traded on the Turkish Electronic Fund Trading Platform (TEFAS) and has become available to international investors.

The Nineteenth Meeting of the Forum was held virtually on September 23rd, 2025.

The detailed information regarding the activities of the Forum is available on www.oicexchanges.org.

COMCEC CAPITAL MARKETS’ REGULATORS FORUM

In line with the relevant resolutions of the 25th and the 26th Sessions of the COMCEC calling for developing a cooperation mechanism for capital markets regulatory bodies of the Member States, the COMCEC Capital Markets Regulators Forum was established in 2011.

The Forum aims at increasing coordination and cooperation in regulatory and legal infrastructure with a view to achieving more harmonized policies and regulations among the OIC Member States, supporting market development, and reinforcing the capabilities of regulatory authorities. The Forum has five Task Forces on the areas of Market Development, Capacity Building, Islamic Finance, Financial Literacy, and Sustainability.

Under the Forum, GEFAS Platform (Real Estate-based and Developing Financial Instruments Information System) has been launched and became operational on 16 September 2022 (https://gefas.gov.tr/). The GEFAS aims to improve transparency and efficiency in capital markets by facilitating access to product, issuer, and performance information on Lease Certificates, Real Estate Investment Company Shares, and Real Estate Investment Funds traded in Borsa Istanbul. Currently, it has included 14 OIC Member Countries, namely: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia Stock Exchanges.

The Forum has held thirteen meetings so far. The Thirteenth Meeting of the Forum was held virtually on October 16th, 2024.

The detailed information regarding the activities of the Forum is available on http://www.comceccmr.org/

OIC-COMCEC CENTRAL BANKS FORUM

The 16th Meeting of the Central Banks and Monetary Authorities of the OIC Member States was held on September 23th-25th, 2018 in Antalya, Türkiye. In the 16th Meeting of the Central Banks and Monetary Authorities of the OIC Member States, the Central Banks of the OIC Member States decided to continue their activities as the “OIC-COMCEC Central Banks Forum”. The 34th COMCEC Session took note of the communique of the said meeting as well as the decision on the establishment of the “OIC-COMCEC Central Banks Forum”.

Within this framework, the Forum has held seven meetings so far, and the last meeting was held on 28-29 September 2025 in İstanbul, Türkiye. In these Meetings, the participants discussed ways and means of further cooperation among the member countries.

The detailed information regarding the activities of the Forum is available on http://comceccentralbanks.org/