From Cpifinancial.net: Farouk Alwyni, who is Director of Treasury & International Banking for Bank Muamalat, highlights the fact that there is no single Islamic bank in Indonesia at the moment having equity exceeding $200 million even though the Islamic banking sector has grown from three institutions in 2007 to 10 in 2010.
At the same time asset growth of Islamic banking in Indonesia has been more than double that of the country’s overall banking industry over the last four years……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Reuters: Japan’s Nomura Holdings on Thursday said it raised $70 million through an Islamic financing instrument in the Middle East, a move that follows an Islamic bond sale earlier this month in Malaysia.
Nomura’s Commodity Murabaha facility has a three year tenor offering a profit margin of 175 basis points per year and will be used for liquidity management purposes, the company said a statement. The bank had an initial target to raise $50 million……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Cpifinancial.net: Nomura’s Commodity Murabaha Facility has closed having raised US$70 million through syndication. Due to increased demand, the issuance was increased from the original target of $50 million.
ABC Islamic Bank, the Islamic finance subsidiary of Arab Banking Corporation, was appointed as the sole Mandated Lead Arranger……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Lexology.com: Toronto is the financial services capital of Canada and one of North America’s premier financial centres. One of the most rapidly growing segments of the international financial services sector is Islamic finance.
Recognizing this trend, a number of other financial centres are positioning themselves as global centres for Islamic Finance, including London, England, Dubai, UAE, Bahrain and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Institutionalinvestor.com: In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the prospects for Islamic finance appear brighter than ever. The industry boasts an estimated $1 trillion in assets, and Islamic banking — untouched by subprime-mortgage-backed securities and other toxic assets that devastated many Western institutions — continues to grow at a rate of about 20 percent a year.
Financial centers from Bahrain and Dubai in the Persian Gulf to Malaysia and Singapore in Asia are moving to improve their regulatory frameworks in a bid to win a bigger piece of the pie……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Bloomberg: The Islamic bond market is showing that Dubai is regaining investor confidence after a group of creditors agreed to restructure Nakheel PJSC’s debt.
The average yield on sukuk sold by Gulf Cooperation Council borrowers fell eight basis points yesterday to 7.23 percent, according to the HSBC/NASDAQ Dubai GCC US Dollar Sukuk Index……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From WSJ: The Indonesian government is considering cancelling the global sukuk and Samurai bond offerings it was planning this year, a senior official at the finance ministry told reporters Thursday.
“We are considering cancelling the plans as domestic conventional bond issues will likely be adequate to cover the budget deficit,” said Rahmat Waluyanto, the director-general for debt management……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Thenational.ae: Hogan Lovells, an international law firm, is suing a Kuwaiti developer for US$155,711 (Dh571,900) of allegedly unpaid fees related to a sukuk offering, according to documents filed in the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts.
Abyaar Real Estate Development, a publicly traded company that has 13 projects in Dubai, planned to offer a sukuk in 2008. Hogan Lovells was contracted by Barclays Capital and National Bank of Dubai to handle the legal arrangements for the offering at a cost of up to $225,000, court documents show……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Tradearabia.com: Qatari Diar’s dual tranche $3.5 billion bond sale attracted combined orders of over $23 billion according to a lead manager, as investors scrambled to get their hands on state-backed paper from the Gulf state.
Foreign investors are keen to buy into debt issues from Qatar, the Gulf country rich in natural gas reserves and whose economy is expected to show double digit growth rates this year and in the next three to five years……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Btimes.com.my: Sumitomo Corp is arranging the first Islamic funding deal in Japan, which could pave the way for other Japanese issuers to tap the US$1 trillion (RM3.20 trillion) industry, a source with knowledge of the deal said in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
The yen-denominated issue, which would be the first by a Japanese issuer in the country, mirrors the structure of Islamic bonds but is not strictly sukuk as Japan’s banking regulations do not provide for such an offering……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Citywire.co.uk: The $2.7 billion Amana Mutual Funds Trust, a sharia-compliant fund, produced a five-year annualized return of 6.76%, according to Morningstar. It posted these results despite conforming to Islamic principles which means the fund avoids earning interest or investing in companies that do.
From the outset these funds clearly outline which stocks or companies they consider unsuitable, according to their religious beliefs……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Bt.com.bn: Tabung Amanah Islam Brunei (TAIB) is a cornerstone investor for the Securus Data Property Fund Pte Ltd (Securus Fund), the world’s first Syariah-compliant data centre fund.
Managed out of Singapore, the fund has recently achieved its initial closing of US$100 million with institutional investors from the Middle East and Asia which includes TAIB as the cornerstone investor, and intends to increase its aggregate committed capital to at least US$200 million……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Thepeninsulaqatar.com: Al Jazeera Finance (AJF), Qatar’s leading Islamic finance company, is offering multiple Islamic Financing options aimed especially at assisting those who need Wedding Finance solutions.
As one of the pioneers of Shariah financing in Qatar, AJF is uniquely poised to understand the financing needs of individuals and families and have put forward a number of flexible financing packages that cover all aspects of weddings, said AJF……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Zawya Dow Jones: Qatar Islamic Bank or QIB , the Gulf Arab state’s second-largest lender by market value, posted a 35% drop in second-quarter net profit and missed analyst forecasts as it booked 71.81 million Qatari riyals ($19.72 million) of provisions.
The company, in an emailed statement earlier Wednesday, said profit fell to 300.9 million Qatari riyals ($82.61 million) in the three month period, from QAR462.4 million a year ago……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Gulf-times.com: The demand for funding has picked up considerably in the last six months of this year and is reflected on a 16% jump in International Islamic’s financing portfolio in H1, the bank’s chief executive officer Abdulbasit A al-Shaibei said.
“People are coming to us for funding…but we don’t have speculators anymore…we now have people looking for genuine transactions…this is what we have been focusing on,” al-Shaibei said……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Globalarabnetwork.com: The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), has prepared its 2009 Sustainability Report becoming the first UAE bank to publish an annual sustainability report.
NBAD’s 2009 Sustainability Report, available on the Bank’s website, is a baseline report of the Bank’s sustainability performance and sets out commitments on how the bank will become a sustainability leader……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Tradearabia.com: ‘Brilliant Marketing for Islamic Banks,’ the first book for Islamic bank marketers written by Islamic finance journalist Paul McNamara, will be launched today (Friday).
The book is aimed at helping those who are responsible for marketing and corporate communications within Islamic banks do their jobs better, representing a world first, said a statement from the publisher Business Bookclub……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Tradearabia.com: Standard Chartered expects to complete private equity deals in the Middle East in 2010, but sees the unhealthy IPO market and a price expectation gap between buyers and sellers as barriers to the sector’s revival.
Taimoor Labib, recently named head of the emerging markets-focused British bank’s private equity business for the Mena region and Turkey, is eyeing opportunities in the manufacturing, health and retail sectors with a focus on the UAE and Saudi Arabia……………………………………….Full Article: Source

From Dailystar.com.lb: A new book by long-term American University Beirut (AUB) board of trustees’ chairman, Richard Debs, has won wide acclaim from fellow academics and economists for its detailed and insightful, yet accessible, take on Islamic finance, a university statement said on Thursday.
“Islamic Law and Civil Code – The Law of Property in Egypt,” published earlier this month, analyzes the classical Islamic law of property based on the Islamic Sharia and traces its historic development in Egypt……………………………………….Full Article: Source