Posted on 13 April 2010 by Laxman | Email|Print
From Businessweek.com: Global contributions to the Islamic insurance industry, known as Takaful, may rise 30 percent to $8.9 billion worldwide this year, Ernst & Young LLP said in a report.
Gulf States will account for $6.47 billion, or 73 percent, of the world’s contributions this year, the report said. Assets held by Islamic financial institutions may rise five-fold to more than $5 trillion as demand increases for products that comply with Muslim principles, according to Moody’s Investors Service………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Maktoob.com: The crowded Islamic insurance industry, which is expected to surpass $8.8 billion in premiums in 2010, will see more consolidations over the next three years as insurers are struggling to be profitable, a report said.
Ernst & Young said on Monday in its annual global report on the Islamic insurance industry, called takaful, many operators in the industry were startups or small players that were finding it hard to make profits in the tough financial environment………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Business24-7.ae: The UAE, along with India, has been the fastest growing Islamic insurance (takaful) market in the world with compounded annual growth rate of 135 per cent from 2005 to 2008, according to a latest research report by Ernst & Young.
The UAE and India is followed by Indonesia, which rose quickest in South East Asia with growth rate of 35 per cent. The global takaful compounded growth rate was 39 per cent, while the Gulf recorded 45 per cent growth during the period………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Saudigazette.com.sa: Saudi Arabia, with contributions totaling $2.9 billion in 2008, and Malaysia with $900 million are the top two Takaful markets in the world. Sudan is the most significant market outside of the GCC and SE Asia, with contributions totaling $280 million in 2008.
Global compound annual growth rate for Takaful for the period 2005 - 2008 has been 39 percent; the Levant region and Africa grew at 18 percent, the Indian Subcontinent at 135 percent, SE Asia at 28 percent and the GCC at 45 percent………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Arabianbusiness.com: Noor Investment Group’s Islamic finance ventures will double their revenue this year to $54 million, their managing director said.
Ahmed Al Janahi, managing director, Noor Takaful Family and Noor Takaful General, said: “We have a lot of room for growth.”……………………………….Full Article: Source
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From Business24-7.ae: International Investment Group (IIG), a Kuwaiti finance company, defaulted on a payment for its $200 million (Dh734.5m) Islamic bond, the second Kuwait-based firm to miss a sukuk payment in a year.
“IIG has communicated to the sukukholders through IIG Funding of its inability to make the periodic distribution amount of $3.35m due on April 12,” IIG said yesterday in a statement posted on the Nasdaq Dubai bourse website. IIG said it appointed an “international” firm to review its business, before a financial restructuring at a later date………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Bloomberg: Islamic bond sales should climb 50 percent to $30 billion this year, driven by low interest rates and spending by governments on infrastructure programs aimed at supporting growth, KFH Research Ltd. said.
About $20 billion of Islamic bonds announced last year are expected to be issued in 2010 and “another $10 billion or more could potentially enter the pipeline,” KFH Research senior analyst Tursina Yaacob said in a phone interview from Kuala Lumpur today………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Albawaba.com: One of the world’s leading Shari’ah scholars Sheikh Nizam Yaquby, specialist Islamic lawyer Neil Miller of Norton Rose and Lawrence Oliver of DD Cap addressed the issues around sukuk issuance and other important topics of the day in global Islamic finance.
Sheikh Yaquby stressed the importance of the role of Sukuk. “Sukuk is one of the most important tools of Islamic finance,” Yaquby said………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Reuters: Bahrain’s central bank is increasing efforts to train Islamic finance scholars in banking practices, an official said on Monday, to address a bottleneck for the industry’s growth.
Islamic scholars are important gatekeepers in the emerging Islamic finance industry, whose assets are estimated at between $500 billion to $1 trillion, as they decide which products and transactions are allowed under sharia, or Islamic law………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Globalarabnetwork.com: Bahrain is looking to consolidate its position as one of the key players in the Islamic finance sector, working to build on its current position of strength and ensure it has the skills base to launch further expansion in the future.
At the end of 2009, 27 of the 140 banks operating in Bahrain were sharia-compliant lenders, with combined assets of $25.5bn, more than 10% of the sector’s total. In addition, at the beginning of 2009, there were 18 takaful (Islamic insurance) companies and one retakaful firm based in the Kingdom, out of a total of 177 insurance policy writers with offices in Bahrain………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Reuters: Qatar’s fourth-biggest lender by market value, Masraf al Rayan, said first-quarter profits rose almost 50 percent on the back of rising deposits and a surge in financing activity.
The Islamic lender said quarterly profit hit 312 million riyals ($85.76 million), up 48.5 percent from a year earlier, boosted by a jump in deposits to 21.6 billion riyals from 13.8 billion riyals, in a statement………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Reuters: Up to five Qatari individuals are aiming to buy a 25-percent stake in Ahli United Bank, Bahrain’s biggest lender, with the aim of turning it into a wholly Islamic bank, a source familiar with the matter said.
AUB said last week Kuwaiti investment firm Tamdeen and other unnamed shareholders had agreed to sell the stake in the Bahraini bank to an undisclosed buyer from the Gulf Arab region, in a deal estimated at about $1.3 billion………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Albawaba.com: Ahli United Bank (AUB) has been named ‘Best Bank in Bahrain 2010’ by Global Finance, the highly respected international financial services magazine.
This is the fifth year running AUB has won this accolade in the annual Best Emerging Markets Banks survey by New-York based Global Finance. In the same survey, AUB’s subsidiary in Iraq, Commercial Bank of Iraq, was named ‘Best Bank in Iraq 2010’ for the second consecutive year, a further testimony to AUB Group well-established leading position in Bahrain and the region………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Thepeninsulaqatar.com: Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) recently received the ISO 27001 for banking information Security from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
The bank said this came as a result of QIB’s possession and submission of several high technical standards related to information security, operations, and security procedures, especially the websites and used software………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Arabianbusiness.com: Kuwait Finance House plans to invest in the alternative energy sector, an executive of the Islamic bank has said, adding that the move would not negatively affect Kuwait’s oil dependant national income.
Abdul Nasser Al-Subeih, the acting assistant general manager for investment sector of the KFH (Baitak), said the bank was studying projects with a view to invest in the industry………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Reuters: National Bank of Kuwait, the country’s largest lender, has raised its stake in Islamic lender Boubyan Bank to 47 percent, bourse data showed on Monday.
NBK had received the Kuwaiti central bank’s approval last month to raise its 40 percent stake in Boubyan to a maximum of 60 percent. The approval is valid for three months, starting March 22………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Albawaba.com: Deutsche Bank AG announced today the formation of Deutsche Gulf Finance, a joint venture Shariah-compliant home financing company owned 40% by the Bank’s Riyadh Branch and 60% by a group of prominent Saudi-based investors, led by Fahad Abdullah Abdulaziz Al Rajhi.
Fahad Abdullah Al Rajhi said: “We are excited to partner with Deutsche Bank and benefit from its global experience in housing finance. Deutsche Gulf Finance will benchmark itself against international best practices and looks forward to contributing to the growth of home ownership in Saudi Arabia.”……………………………….Full Article: Source
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From Saudigazette.com.sa: Although the Saudi real estate sector has been supported by domestic demand fundamentals in recent years, still the market remains undersupplied, particularly for middle and lower income communities, shielding it from selling pressures that have dragged down other Gulf real estate markets in the past year, Banque Saudi Fransi said in its report this month on the Kingdom’s real estate sector.
It noted that the stabilization and rise of prices in many parts of Saudi Arabia could signal real estate prices will continue to strengthen into 2010, although we expect any pick up in real estate demand will be muted and gradual………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Ciol.com: NCB Capital, a big investment bank in Saudi Arabia, and the first Saudi Investment Bank to be licensed by CMA, has selected Complinet, the leading provider of connected risk and compliance solutions, to be their preferred supplier for their compliance and AML e-learning courses.
Aaron Johari, Head of Compliance at NCB Capital said, “Educating our staff on regulatory and ethical requirements is a critical part of delivering on our commitment to compliance best practice………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Arabnews.com: Foreign-based financial firms have indicated their desire to set up their offices in Saudi Arabia. “The reason for this is the bright prospects for the private equity industry (PE) in Saudi Arabia. PE is needed by growing local companies to enable them to cross the ‘debt valley’,” said Ahmed M. Al-Sari, executive partner at Malaz Capital.
Many say that the Kingdom will be the next big private equity market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Gulf-daily-news.com: BBK has announced that its BBK-ING MENA Invest Fund has seen its net asset value increase by more than 10 per cent since its date of launch this February.
The fund is an open ended equity fund that seeks long term capital appreciation by investing in a portfolio of companies whose securities are listed in the GCC and the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) markets. ……………………………….Full Article: Source
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From Thestar.com: Malaysia can play the role of moderator in promoting entrepreneurship in the Islamic context in the Western world.
Oxford University’s Said Business School Fellow in Entrepreneurship Dr Pegram Harrison said Malaysia, which was well known in the West as a moderate Islamic country, fitted the bill………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Thestar.com: Zero interest and faith are not words one commonly associates with credit cards. They do have a place in discussions about the iFreedom Plus MasterCard, tailored to meet the religious requirements of Canada’s Islamic community and recently launched by Toronto company UM Financial.
“There are clients in the market looking for structured products that are compliant,” from credit cards to mortgages, said Omar Kalair, president and chief executive officer. UM Financial plans to market the card to all Canadians………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Gulf-daily-news.com: Regional investors should look to the real economy and diversification in the future. That is the view of Abu Dhabi Investment House (ADIH) managing director Rashad Janahi.
“We should be looking at more investment in the real economy in agriculture, healthcare and education,” he said………………………………..Full Article: Source
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From Opalesque: The world’s first Sharia compliant portfolio based on the Fundamental Index (R) methodology has been developed for the SEDCO Group based in Saudi Arabia by Swedish based investment manager IPM Informed Portfolio Management (IPM).
The mandate is based on a Global Sharia screened portfolio using FTSE RAFI Global Index weightings………………………………..Full Article: Source
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