Borsa İstanbul’s Opening Bell Rang for BIST Participation Indices which will be calculated as of November 12, 2021.

Aiming to grow and increase product diversity in the field of sustainability and participation finance, Borsa İstanbul launched a new product. Borsa İstanbul starts to calculate five participation indices as of November 12, 2021. An Opening Bell Ceremony was held at Borsa Istanbul today for the indices BIST Participation 30, BIST Participation 50, BIST Participation 100, BIST Participation All and BIST Sustainability Participation Indices.

At the ceremony, Borsa İstanbul A.Ş. CEO Korkmaz Ergun, Banking Regulation and Supervison Agency (BDDK) Vice Chairman Erhan Çetinkaya, T.C. Ziraat Bankası CEO Alpaslan Çakar, Vakıfbank CEO Abdi Serdar Üstünsalih, Halkbank CEO Osman Arslan,  TKBB Secretary General Osman Akyüz, TKBB Advisory Board Chairman Prof. Dr. Hasan Hacak, TKBB Advisory Board Deputy Chairman Prof. Dr. Ertuğrul Boynukalın, Albaraka Türk Katılım Bankası Board Member Melikşah Utku, Kuveyt Türk Katılım Bankası A.Ş. CEO Ufuk Uyan, Türkiye Finans Katılım Bankası A.Ş. Executive Vice President Yiğit Satılmaz, Ziraat Katılım Bankası A.Ş. Executive Vice President Osman Karakütük, Türkiye Emlak Katılım Bankası A.Ş. Deputy General Manager Uğur Kara, Vakıf Katılım Bankası A.Ş. Deputy General Manager Sabri Ulus and Borsa İstanbul Index Director Levent Bilgin rang the Opening Bell together.

In his address at the Opening Bell Ceremony, Korkmaz Ergun, the CEO of Borsa İstanbul A.Ş., stated the following: “As Borsa İstanbul, we endeavor to make our companies and investors benefit from the opportunities of our capital markets. Of course, it lays a heavy burden on our shoulders. For this purpose, to summarize under three headings, we aim to provide more resources to our companies by increasing IPO's, we aim to strengthen our corporate communication with foreign investors, and moreover we continue to improve and diversify our financial services and products.” 

Expressing that they have achieved one more goal in order to develop capital markets by starting to calculate 5 participation indices which is a field they aim to grow, Ergun further contended the following regarding the participation indices: “We will ensure that investment funds will be established based on these new indices that we will calculate. Besides, we will launch futures contracts based on these indices. Thus, investors will be able to invest directly in companies that meet the participation finance criteria or financial products based on these companies. In this way, we will continue to increase the diversity of participation finance products on our Exchange. 165 companies that are listed in Borsa İstanbul and meet the participation criteria were included in the BIST Participation Index. I invite other companies to be included in the Participation Index. As Borsa İstanbul, we are ready to provide all kinds of support to our companies.”

Furthermore, Ergun mentioned that they carry out the General Secretariat of the Exchanges Forum, established with the members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and hold as follows: “We developed a Sharia index jointly with Islamic countries. This index includes companies traded on the member stock exchanges of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.  The participation shares of the investment fund established based on this index have been issued. We invite the member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to invest in this fund. As such, we proceed to improve participation finance in the international arena. Furthermore, as Borsa İstanbul, we are on the Board of the World Federation of Exchanges. Our friends have served in all sub-committees of the World Federation of Exchanges, where we work together with other stock exchanges. We will foster the efforts to develop participation finance in the international arena at the World Federation of Exchanges.”

Ergun maintained his remarks as follows: “I would also like to emphasize the BIST Sustainability Participation Index, which is among the 5 participation indices that we have started to calculate today. Thus, we will present companies that meet both the participation finance criteria and the sustainability criteria to our investors who want to invest in both areas at the same time. Along the same lines, green lease certificates will be one of the best examples in this field. Lease certificates traded on our stock exchange which was previously 5% have also increased to 25% in total according to the issuance revenue. In the 2022 Annual Program of our Presidency, within the framework of the steps to strengthen interest-free finance, we, as Borsa İstanbul, will continue to work towards making our country one of the interest-free finance centers within the scope of Istanbul Financial Center.”

Osman Akyüz, the Secretary-General of  Participation Banks Association of Turkey (TKBB) stated that the process of developing the participation index is long and toilsome, he further said: “We have been maintaining our work on this issue since 2008. We exert our efforts to create the necessary standards so that investors who adopt participation principles can evaluate their savings with ease and invest in participation-based capital market instruments. Within this field, we have previously created Participation Indices that we have implemented with the joint initiative of our Association and Participation Banks and with the support of Borsa İstanbul on the calculation side. Moreover, thanks to the “Share Certificate Issuance and Trade Standard” that we have formed to create an effective standard and governance framework under the umbrella of our Association, we consider that these indices should be taken to a step forward.”

Akyüz maintained his speech as follows: “One of the most important components of the İstanbul Financial Center Project is the development of participation finance ecosystem. As such, I firmly believe that these efforts are essential as participation-based development of capital markets contribute to the development of our national economy and domestic and foreign funds and other investors who invest in this area can be attracted to our country. With the transfer of Participation Indices to our Stock Exchange, these investors will be able to provide a reference with the high reputation, transparency and reliability necessary for the resources they will transfer. This will lead to more participation-based investment coming to our country and easier access to the resources needed by our economy.”