Journal of Central Banking Law and Institutions

AN IDEAL LEGAL TENDER FOR THE DIGITAL ERA

Fransiska Ari Indrawati — 2023-09-16

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift towards digital payments and altered consumer behaviour when it comes to making payments. As a result, the use of state-issued money as legal tender continues to decline in most countries. In turn, the functions and existence of legal tender has decreased. Acknowledging such facts, the purpose of this research is to examine an ideal legal tender for the digital era that can restore the legal tender function while accommodating payment innovation. This research explores legal theories on money and legal tender, as well as the characteristics of various forms of money issued by the State and the private sector, i.e., fiat money, commercial bank money, cryptocurrency, and central bank digital currency. This research concludes that an ideal legal tender for the digital era should incorporate both cash and digital currency. Under this notion, central bank digital currency might serve as the ideal legal tender for the digital era. Nonetheless, there are certain prerequisites to the issuance of such legal tender. These include at least conducting thorough interdisciplinary research and pilot projects by the central bank, establishing an adequate regulatory framework, and ensuring public acceptance of such currency as a means of payment, as well as developing the necessary infrastructure.

LEGAL AND REGULATORY ISSUES OF ISLAMIC FINANCE IN TURKEY: A QUALITATIVE DISCUSSION

Murat Yas — 2023-09-16

This study aims to explore issues related to Islamic financial regulations in Turkey through the use of semi-structured interviews. A total of 12 respondents were involved, including regulators, members of the Central Advisory Board (CAB), the Advisory Board of Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs), and managers from IFIs in Turkey. The results highlight consistent calls for the establishment of an act for the Participation finance industry. This act is seen as a means to ensure tax neutrality, reinforce norm hierarchy, prevent the imitation of conventional financial products, and mitigate Shari’ah non-compliance risk. Additionally, our empirical findings emphasise the importance of enhancing stakeholder engagement, clarifying roles, establishing a robust organizational structure, and enhancing transparency and independence for regulatory authorities. Improved regulatory governance is crucial for enhancing regulatory outcomes. Lastly, the study underscores the need for standardised guidelines for PFIs and emphasises the significance of their voluntary implementation.

ANALYSING THE EFFECT OF CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE ON CORPORATE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: DOES A NONLINEAR RELATIONSHIP OCCUR?

Qori'atul Septiavin — 2023-09-16

Climate change as a part of environmental degradation has become a topic widely discussed in recent decades. This study analyses the relationship between corporate environmental performance and corporate financial performance by studying cases at the company level. The company level was chosen to focus the research since companies are the main actors in economic activity as producers of both goods and services. The method used is unbalanced panel data regression with the Random Effects Model with a sample of 175 firms from 2003 to 2021 in 20 countries. This research also captures the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical results show that there is no nonlinear relationship between corporate environmental performance and corporate financial performance with the Lind-Mehlum test. It indicates that there is a trade-off between profit and the environment. As such, the effort of businesses to drive investors from the profit-oriented to become green-oriented needs significant effort. A key policy priority should therefore be the long-term reinforcement of businesses in green activities.

THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, COVID-19 AND THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: THE SAFE HAVEN POTENTIAL OF ISLAMIC ECONOMICS

Abu Umar Faruq Ahmad — 2023-09-16

Islamic economics is an innovative phenomenon in the modern world. In many developed and developing countries, Islamic financial systems successfully work in parallel with their conventional peers. It is unfortunate that at the time when the world is suffering from a pandemic like COVID-19, the world community has witnessed a war between Russia and Ukraine that has disrupted the global economy. This study evaluates the safe-haven potential of Islamic economics to hedge against a global financial crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict and examines how Islamic economics has responded to this major disruption in the digital era. The published literature is reviewed to investigate the impact of major disruptive events like the global financial crisis 2008-2009, COVID-19 and the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict on the global economy. The findings also show that the global financial crisis, Covid-19, and the Russia-Ukraine war are the major events that have disrupted the paradigms of the changing process. Along with this changing process, the advancement of information technology plays a vital role in accelerating financial innovation in the digital era. Moreover, despite the major episodes, it has grown rapidly compared to the traditional counterpart. As the fastest growing part of the global economic system, Islamic economics has shown appeal to diverse investors and issuers.

DATA SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST: WHAT INDONESIA CAN LEARN AND OPERATIONALISE IN 2024?

Muhammad Deckri Algamar — 2023-09-16

The enactment of the Indonesian Personal Data Protection (PDP) Law is in line with the nation’s position as the most promising digital economy in Southeast Asia. The PDP Law, amongst others, introduces Data Subject Access Request (DSAR), a cornerstone mechanism to exercise data subject rights mirroring the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, major causes of DSAR failure are predominantly triggered by resource constraint, lack of fundamental understanding, and technical gap when responding to such requests. In practice, DSAR management is time consuming and taxing since organisations shall manage numerous and complex requests within a tight timeline. By way of comparative analysis, we explore the concept of data subject rights, specifically the Rights to Access. Through observations and constructive responses by global data protection professionals, academics and non-lawyers, this paper alluded that similar failure scenario might occur in Indonesia when PDP Law grace period ended in 2024 – if the causes are not addressed and mitigated. Apropos, in safeguarding data subjects’ right, we assert that DSAR under the PDP law might bring disproportionate impracticality, hence there is demand for a robust consultation and holistic regulatory implementation. We also propose to consider a harmonized DSAR ASEAN framework for future proofing cross-border payment, in 2024 and beyond.

CRISIS, HAZARD, AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT: A STUDY OF REGULATORY FORMULATION AND INSTITUTIONAL COORDINATION

R. Dwi Tjahja K. Wardhono — 2023-09-16

Management crises, hazards, and disasters should be carried out with an integrated and patterned approach through the formulation of clear regulations and efficient coordination of disaster management institutions. Both will provide effective management in responding to crises, averting hazards, and managing disasters that have the potential to occur across various countries. In developed countries where regulations are well structured, using mitigation protocols, all parties have understood their duties, functions, and responsibilities
in dealing with these risks. However, in countries where unstructured regulation is unstructured, there are complexities and multiple interpretations of regulations and there are intersections of institutional authority, which creates vulnerabilities in dealing with risk. This study concludes the importance of an integrated risk mitigation system, both in terms of rules and regulatory formulation as well as coordination of institutions in one container. In addition to these factors, economic, sociological, and demographic characteristics in a country are also structural conditions that determine the optimal implementation of regulations and institutional coordination.

LEGAL REVIEW ON CPTPP AND ITS IMPLICATION ON BUMIPUTERA’S POLICIES IN MALAYSIA GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT

Muhammad Hanafi Haron — 2023-09-16

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is an open and multi trade agreement that significantly liberalizes international procurement Trans-Pacific markets. Chapter 15 of the CPTPP is covers government procurement. Malaysia signed and eventually ratified CPTPP later in 2022 and needs to incorporate Chapter 15 into its government procurement regulations. Having said this, the question remains on how features of Chapter 15 will stand and comport with the existing protection mechanisms that are practiced by Malaysia in its government procurement regime, namely Bumiputera policy. Malaysia also has claimed some reservation and threshold amounts in the said Chapter under the Annexure 15-A of the State Schedule. Thus, the objective of this writing is, first, to review the existing legislation and regulations in Malaysia that cover government procurement. Then, it discusses how the ratification of the CPTPP will impact the existing Bumiputera policy practiced in government procurement ecosystems. Finally, this writing reviews the Government of Malaysia’s action and plan on government procurement post ratification of CPTPP. This study adopts a qualitative method that mainly relies on descriptive and analytical examinations of statutory provisions and relevant authorities. It concludes that Malaysia’s Bumiputera policy is still unflawed in the government procurement despite the ratification and adoption of Chapter 15 of the CPTPP. BNM as the financial policy advisor to the Government of Malaysia is not being statutorily vested with power to review and provide feedback on CPTPP to the government. This is due to the reservations and high price preferential system imposed by Malaysia for a much longer period before its finally fully incorporated and functional in Malaysia’s government procurement.