From Cntralasianewswire.com: With oil revenues on the rise and its banking sector making a strong recovery, now may seem a surprising time for Kazakhstan to get into the Islamic bond market. But coming off the last few years of shaky economic times, Kazakhstan is wise to diversify its revenue sources. [more]

From Bloomberg: illennium Private Equity Ltd., a Dubai government-linked investment company with about $5 billion in capital, plans to use Islamic financing for venture capital in Europe after buying the first corporate sukuk in the U.K. [more]

From Reuters: Indonesia plans to sell 2 trillion rupiah ($222 million) of sukuk to the state-managed Islamic Haj Fund through a private placement in September, the government’s debt office said on Thursday. [more]

From Allafrica.com: Stanbic Bank Tanzania has recorded an impressive response to the Shariah banking scheme. Already 5,000 new customers have opened accounts since it was introduced three months ago. [more]

Qatar Islamic Bank’s (QIB) subsidiary, European Finance House (EFH) has recently rebranded as QIB UK in order to reinforce its positioning within QIB’s expanding global network. The change was instituted at the beginning of August and acts to unify the brand in order to keep consistency across local and international markets. [more]

From Thepeninsulaqatar.com: Qatar National Bank Group (QNB) and Bank Kesawan recently signed a “Letter of Intent” which, when complete, would make QNB the “Standby Buyer” for a planned rights issue and may result in QNB Group becoming the controlling shareholder of the Indonesia-based bank. [more]

From Thepeninsulaqatar.com: Gulf banks are showing signs of recovery after spending more than $20bn on provisioning for loans and investments but asset quality is unlikely to improve until 2011, Standard & Poor’s said in a report. [more]

From Gulf-times.com: An over-capitalised and crowded banking industry in Qatar makes the sector that was helped out by the government last year ripe for mergers, say analysts. [more]

From Zawya Dow Jones: Al Baraka Egypt Bank , a unit of Bahrain’s Al Baraka Banking Group, plans to gradually hike its capital to 1 billion Egyptian pounds ($175.2 million) over the next five years, Saudi-based Al Riyadh daily reports Thursday, citing an executive. [more]

From Cpifinancial.net: Kuwait Finance House (Malaysia) has launched the KFH Personal Financing-i Hajj and Umrah, been designed for Muslim customers to facilitate their pilgrimages to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. [more]

From Thestar.com.my: Existing takaful operators will have to “up their game” and gear up for stiffer competition as the granting of four new licences by Bank Negara on Wednesday will see more players fighting for a share of the profit slice. [more]

From Mondaq.com: Investment manager Argyll Investment Services Limited has launched the World Shariah Funds PCC Limited, a Guernsey-based suite of Islamic-compliant investments which will be listed on the Channel Islands Stock Exchange (CISX) and distributed globally. [more]

From Telegraph: In an effort to counter the proselytising of Islamic fundamentalists often funded by foreign governments, Russia is underwriting the education of moderate religious leaders and teachers at seven Islamic universities, in Moscow, Tatarstan, Bashkyrkostan and in four North Caucasus republics, including Dagestan. [more]

From Ny1.com: State Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Cuomo said today he has no plans to investigate the Islamic community center and mosque. According to a recent poll, seven out of 10 New York State voters say they want him to look into the project’s financing. [more]