Financial cooperation provides numerous benefits but poses challenges such as governance, risk management, and communication. Thus, international cooperation platforms are increasingly crucial, requiring strong coordination and joint efforts. In this framework, the idea of enhancing financial cooperation under the COMCEC dates back to its initial meetings. Cooperation efforts in this area have been intensified and deepened in recent years. The COMCEC Strategy has defined finance as one of the cooperation areas of COMCEC.

Financial cooperation deepening has been defined as a strategic objective of the Strategy. Hence, it envisages regulatory and supervisory cooperation, capital flows, visibility of financial markets and training and research & development activities and statistics as the output areas. In line with its objectives and expected outcomes, the COMCEC Strategy presents well-identified operational instruments, i.e. the Working Groups and the COMCEC Project Funding.

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.

(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 focuses on the harmonization of the rules and regulations governing market operations, as well as opening communication channels for the stock exchanges of the OIC Member Countries and relevant institutions.

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 seventeen 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 19 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 Seventeenth Meeting of the Forum was held virtually on October 31st, 2023.

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 has Four Task Forces on the areas of Market Development, Capacity Building, Islamic Finance, Financial Literacy. The main aim of these Task Forces is to accelerate the exchange of experiences and information at both global and regional levels among the OIC Member States, as well as assist the development of their markets.

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.

Under the Forum, GEFAS Platform (Real Estate based and Developing Financial Instruments Information System) has been launched and become 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 13 OIC Member Countries namely: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia Stock Exchanges.

The Forum has held twelve meetings so far. The Twelfth Meeting of the Forum was held virtually on November 7th, 2023.

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 its 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 five meetings so far and the last meeting was held on 24-25 September 2023 in İstanbul, Türkiye. In these Meetings, the participants discussed the ways and means on how to further cooperation among the member countries.

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