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Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia:

A number of developments took place within Islamic finance in the past years, including the launch of a Islamic managed account platform and the further growth of the sukuk space that saw this instrument evolve from being a type of an ABS security that was rarely found outside of Malaysia or Indonesia to a major asset class that an increasing number of financial institutions are looking to get exposure to, said Ataf Ahmed of Islamic investment group QInvest during the recent Opalesque 2014 Gulf Roundtable.

Large supply and demand imbalance

Sukuk is an asset class with a very large supply and demand imbalance, he said.

"A big development over the last two quarters was the issuance of sukuks from Non-Islamic countries. We have seen a U.K. Government issue, a South African Government issue, a Hong Kong Government issue and a forthcoming Luxembourg Government issue. These are all major steps to giving the asset class as a whole increasing credibility. While just five years ago I would have said sukuks were very rigidly focused towards the GCC and Southeast Asia, it has now become much more appealing globally," Ahmed said.

He would also regularly come across an increasing number of people buying into sukuk paper from the conventional asse......................

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