While lenders in the United States and Europe have downsized their exposure in banking in compliance with Islamic law, Islamic financial institutions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region are taking over the initiative.
According to global consultancy Ernst and Young, worldwide investments done in line with Islamic law, known as Shari’ah, will reach 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars globally in 2013. There was a time when major Western banks like Citigroup, HSBC, UBS and Deutsche Bank set the pace for the developments in Islamic finance, while their much smaller counterparts in the Muslim world just followed. In recent years, this order has been almost completely shifted in favor of the East………………………………………..Full Article: Source