Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Civil Aviation (Gaca) will issue a sukuk, or Islamic bond, within one or two months to help finance its new SR27 billion ($7.2 billion) airport in Jeddah, its president said on Al Arabiya television channel.
‘We have agreed with the finance ministry to issue a sukuk which will be paid back by revenue from the Civil Aviation Authority, and it will be issued soon… I believe within a month or two,’ said Prince Fahd bin Abdullah………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Turkish unit of Bahrain’s Albaraka Banking Group hopes to raise $200 million in an Islamic bond by the end of this week and is seeing interest from Asian and Arab Gulf investors, the group’s chief executive said on Sunday.
“We’re in the market for this sukuk and hope to raise $200 million by the end of this week,” Adnan Yousif told Reuters. “Pricing for the sukuk is very reasonable. It’s in the 6 percent range,” Yousif added………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The sukuk market is the fastest growing part of Islamic finance. Indeed it is one of the fastest growing segments in the global financial market. Having attracted interest from the business community worldwide, it has helped place Islamic finance as a viable industry and as an asset class that is not confined to Muslim countries but as part and parcel of the international financial market.
This is revealed in the introduction of a book titled “Global Sukuk and Islamic Securitisation Market - Financial Engineering and Product Innovation” written by Muhammad Al-Bashir Muhammad al-Amine, who is currently group head of Shariah compliance at Bank Al-Khair (formerly Unicorn Investment Bank) in Bahrain………………………………………..Full Article: Source

South Africa is on the cusp of issuing its maiden Sukuk and yesterday the National Treasury requested lenders to submit proposals forthe structuring and issuance of a local and international Sukuk by December 21.
The process is due to close on January20, 2012 when the winning arrangers will be announced. “There is great interest in the Sukukmarket and this is the first step towards meeting the growing appetite for government-backed Shari’ah compliant investments,” Lungisa Fuzile, DG of theNational Treasury, said in the finance ministry’s mid-term budget statement onOctober 25………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) is confident it can refinance a $2.04-billion Islamic bond due next year without government support and it does not rule out asset sales to help raise funds, its chairman said on December 06.
Hisham Abdullah al-Shirawi told Reuters on the sidelines of a business forum that the Dubai World unit was in talks with “many financial institutions and others” to refinance the dirham-denominated Islamic bond, or sukuk, due in November 2012………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Iran will probably issue €5 billion in bonds inside and outside the country aiming to provide necessary finance to develop its oil and gas industries, the National Iranian Oil Company’s managing director announced.
The bonds will be offered by the end of the current calendar year (March 20, 2012), the official added, the Mehr news agency reported………………………………………..Full Article: Source

According to the 5th annual Ernst & Young Islamic Funds & Investments Report (IFIR 2011) released at the World Islamic Funds and Capital Markets Conference, global Islamic fund assets under management (AuM) grew by 7.6% to $58 billion in 2010, up from $53.9 billion in 2009. The growth was largely due to market performance and partially on account of new money inflows.
Concentration in equities remains, as they account for 39% of the $58billion AuM, but bringing new money into equities is challenging. Fixed income, commodities and alternatives did well in 2010, which was a record year for Sukuk with issuance of $50 billion………………………………………..Full Article: Source

To some observers of Islamic equity investing, Islamic or Sharia-compliant equity indexes seem to imply investing in publicly-listed companies in Muslim countries.
The end results contradict the assumptions. This also rebuts allegations by many from the anti-Sharia movement that Islamic investing is about investing in companies linked to terrorism or financing terrorism. The largest companies in the S&P Global BMI Sharia include ExxonMobil, IBM, Chevron, Nestle and Microsoft………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Bahrain’s central bank has urged five Islamic banks to merge early next year as it seeks to strengthen the banks’ capital bases, a senior official said on Sunday.
Under the plan, Al Salam Bank would merge with Bahrain Islamic Bank, while CAPIVEST, Elaf Bank and Capital Management House would merge with each other………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Qatari commercial banks may continue to manage Islamic assets beyond the year-end deadline to close their Islamic banking arms, the central bank governor said in an interview with the state-run Qatar News Agency.
The banks also have the option to transfer the assets to the country’s Islamic banks, Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud Al Thani said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Islamic banking assets in the UAE are predicted to grow to 20 per cent of the total banking sector in 2012 from an estimated 18 per cent this year, Standard Chartered Saadiq, the Islamic arm of the bank, said on Sunday.
The bank said it expects Islamic assets to constitute 38 per cent of total consumer banking assets in the UAE in 2012, compared to about 35 per cent in 2010. It didn’t provide a 2011 estimate. According to the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the collective assets of the eight Islamic banks in the UAE were Dh269 billion at the end of 2010, accounting for around 16.2 per cent of the overall banking assets of Dh1.66 trillion………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Standard Chartered Saadiq, the Islamic banking arm of Standard Chartered Bank, yesterday said it is looking at opportunities to expand into newly-opened Islamic banking markets such as Oman and Nigeria and is closely evaluating the opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.
“We are looking at opportunities in Oman and Nigeria, the two newly-opened markets for Islamic finance. The bank is likely to take a decision on entry into these markets sometime next year,” said Wasim Saifi, Global Head, Islamic Banking (Consumer Banking) of Standard Chartered Saadiq………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Standard Chartered is in discussions with regulators to offer Islamic banking services in Oman and Nigeria, now that both countries are revamping their regulatory environments to encourage Islamic finance, the bank’s global head of Islamic banking on Sunday.
Wasim Saifi said the company, which already has a strong conventional presence in both markets, was waiting for the countries to finalise their regulatory frameworks for Islamic banking but could offer the services in Oman and Nigeria as early as next year………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Bank Islam Malaysia is looking at opportunities for expansion in Indonesia and Bangladesh, Managing Director Datuk Seri Zukri Samat said mergers and acquisitions are on the bank’s agenda for inorganic growth and corporate expansion but that no formal discussions are underway yet.
Indonesia and Bangladesh are identified as “very interesting countries” that fit into the bank’s expansion plan, Malaysian news agency Bernama reports………………………………………..Full Article: Source

International Islamic (QIIB) chairman and managing director Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Thani al-Thani, also vice-chairman of the Qatari Businessmen Association, met Morocco’s new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane on Saturday and discussed the prospects of setting up an Islamic bank and an insurance company in the North African country.
The high-level delegation accompanying Sheikh Khalid, including QIIB chief executive officer, Abdulbasit al-Shaibei, also met senior Moroccan officials, members of the royal family and leaders of the business community………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Islamic banking has emerged as a new reality in the Tanzania financial scene in which case the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) needs to create a conducive atmosphere to positive service delivery in the new field, Zanzibar President Dr. Ali Mohammed Shein has declared.
President Shein made this appeal in Dar es Salaam officiating at an inauguration of the third branch of the People’s Bank of Zanzibar (PBZ) at Lumumba/Mahiwa Street in Kariakoo area, whereby he decried attitudinal indifference of Tanzanian customers about Islamic banking services………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The bank stopped marketing its Islamic products because of technical problems earlier this year but plans to return to the Shariah-compliant market in early 2012.
According to the latest statistics from Bank Al-Maghrib, Islamic financing totalled MAD 744 million ($89.3 million) at the end of July, down 15 per cent since the beginning of the year. La Vie Eco quotes Laidi El Wardi, Deputy General Manager of Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP) as saying the bank’s move to suspend marketing Shari’ah-compliant products, “…is in response to technical problems at the marketing of our solutions.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

A professional researcher on India-centric socio economic and political databases Shafeeq Rahman while stating that the core system of the interest-free banking, widely termed as the Islamic Banking System, is developed by economists of the Indian subcontinent expressed surprise over the fact that the region has gained nothing from it.
“The conceptual framework of Islamic banking is mainly developed by the Islamic economists of the Indian subcontinent; in particular, the complete non-interest banking module was developed for the first time in 1969 by Nejatullah Siddiqi though the business of Islamic banking flourished in West Asian countries, Iran, Malaysia and Indonesia”, Shafeeque Rahman wrote in a recent article published in Tehelka………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) is reviewing credit ratings on 50 banks in the Middle East and North Africa under a new set of criteria, a move that could result in higher funding costs for lenders already hit by the euro zone crisis and the Arab Spring revolts.
The agency, which last month classified Bahrain’s banks as the riskiest in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), and saw a weak credit profile for United Arab Emirates lenders, expects more activity in debt capital markets as bank lending struggles, a senior S&P executive told Reuters in an interview………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Islamic finance and business education has flourished over the last decade or so in line with the growth of the industry. Universities, business schools, colleges and professional bodies - both in the Muslim countries and in other countries especially Europe, Singapore and the US - have introduced courses on Islamic finance purportedly helping to meet the demand for trained human capital, the dearth of which is a major bottleneck threatening the continued growth of the industry.
Not surprisingly, in the absence of a globally recognized accreditation body for Islamic finance and business education, quality and standards are at best mixed, with some courses bordering on the ordinary and mediocre………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Marketed as an investment one-stop shop, multi-manager funds first came to light in the 1980s but became more prominent as an investment model in the 1990s. They are a very popular optionamongst both retail and institutional investors in the US and UK. The funds aredesigned to make an investor’s life easier by bringing together a range of specialist managers into a single fund.
There are two types of multi-manager funds: those that invest in a range of other funds controlled by different asset managers, which are called funds of funds, and those that appointexternal managers with specific expertise to invest separate tranches of theprovider’s portfolio; these are called manager of managers funds………………………………………..Full Article: Source

In these volatile times managing global political risks is a major challenge for investors and financiers alike. As the global economic and financial crisis and its impact on markets the world over; the euro zone sovereign debt crisis; and the fallout of the Arab Spring continue to fester, demand for investment, political risk and sovereign risk insurance is soaring as part of risk management and mitigation strategies.
In the MENA countries, demand for Shariah-compliant PRI has increased significantly, according to various providers………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Barwa Bank has formed a strategic partnership with Allianz Takaful, - QFC Branch, a major player in the family takaful segment, to become the first Islamic lender to offer a comprehensive range of Shariah compliant unit linked takaful products to customers.
Commenting on the partnership, Barwa Bank general manager (Banking) Keith Bradley said: “We are very pleased to have partnered with one of the leading takaful providers to provide customers with a suite of products which enable them to save, whilst at the same time enjoying very high levels of protection for their families. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

The Arab Monetary Fund is unlikely to offer any funding assistance to the euro zone because providing loans to unrest-hit countries across the Arab world has priority, Director General Jassim Al-Mannai said on Sunday.
“There is a big need in Arab countries, a constant need, taking into account the Arab Spring,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of regional bankers in the UAE capital………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The debilitating debt crisis in euro zone economies and the continued economic growth in other advanced economies are among the major reasons impacting the global economy.
However, Saudi Arabia, the biggest economy in the Middle East, is among a very few countries that has proved to be quite resilient and robust. “It is thanks largely to a number of effective reforms that were undertaken in the last few years,” said Khaled Al-Aboodi, the chief executive officer of Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector………………………………………..Full Article: Source