KUALA LUMPUR: Maybank Islamic Bhd aims to contribute up to RM10 million in its debut waqf fund, which is also a collaboration with the Perak Religious Council (MAIP) via the Waqf Perak Ar-Ridzuan (WPAR).
The bank's participation in the waqf fund (endowment fund) is broken down to RM5 million each; with the first half for the construction of a students’ hostel for Universiti Islam Sultan Azlan Shah and the remaining half in general cash.
"This fund is unique in such a way that Maybank Islamic is taking up three roles concurrently; namely as the collection agent via our online platform, Maybank2U, as the donor (waqif) as well as the fund manager," said chief executive officer Datuk Muzaffar Hisham at the announcement here, earlier today.
"There are other waqf funds by other financial institutions (FI), but this would be the first time that an FI would be taking on all three roles."
The RM5 million cash waqf will be raised collectively through the public as well as via Maybank Islamic.
"We invite the public to donate to the fund through Maybank2U and we will match their donation, ringgit to ringgit," said Muzaffar.
"We aim to meet the RM5 million target in two years as our Maybank2U system is already up and running... but even then, two years is a conservative target. We expect to make that aim much quicker than that."
There are currently some three million active users on the Maybank2U platform.
WAPR was officially launched by the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah in April this year.
Several projects, which have been categorised into four clusters namely religious, health, education and economy, have been identified under the WAPR.
Maybank Islamic meanwhile, is Asean's leading Islamic bank and is the largest Islamic commercial bank in Malaysia.
It holds 33 per cent and 26 per cent of the Islamic financing and deposits market share, respectively as at 31st March 2016.