In an eventful quarter, there was much progress made within MCCA and a lot of great feedback from our community and the general public. Our housing finance products have really taken off this year with sales surpassing well over $100 million for the year. This has been by far the best performing year in MCCA’s history and the sort of feedback we are hearing from our clients are that the level of service has been a noticeable improvement as well as the a quick turnaround period with conditional approvals taking an average 48-72 hours. Undoubtedly, everybody loves the rate reductions and it’s really showing with clients finding no reason why they should stay with their bank.
Furthermore, not only have sales really shot up in 2011/12, we really can’t keep up with the growth in investments in our Income Fund. It’s great to see trust and commitment by our investors who are notably pleased by the performance of the Income Fund last year and are anticipating similar returns of approximately 5% this year. With the property market nothing less than uncertain, people are really taking up to low-risk alternatives to ride through this phase of uncertainty.
In April, May and June, we have held a number of community seminars and workshops in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth that were warmly received and really praised within the community. They were very insightful and allowed an opportunity for every day mums, dads, students and the like to catch a glimpse of the deep ocean of knowledge and intricacy involved in Islamic Finance. This has also resulted in strengthening community awareness of Islamic Finance and appreciation of the distinctions it makes with conventional financing structures.
Moreover, all is warm and lively in the MCCA engine room with staff really enjoying their work and certain added incentives for their hard efforts. Fuad Abdin and Esti Aji, former PR & Marketing Manager and former Mortgage Services officer respectively, have both left our Melbourne office for family and personal reasons. They have been a valuable part of the MCCA team in the recent past and their contributions will not be forgotten. Despite the noticeable absentees, all is well and good with staff morale flying high in anticipation of a strong ending the calendar year.
In other news, our website revamp is now up and running. It’s been much anticipated and features functions such as calculators and online applications. It will also be a hub for all educational and news content relating to Islamic finance. It’s a decision we’ve made within MCCA that we give everyone equal access to knowledge, content and opportunities to be in contact with MCCA 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and that is what we are trying to achieve through this new website.
