IslamicFinance.de

Shariah-compliant products for interbank money market will be developed by the Pakistan's central bank in order to overcome the shortage of investment options which Islamic lenders are facing.

Acting Governor Yaseen Anwar said the products “will provide some flexible and convenient mechanism for managing the surplus liquidity in the Islamic banking industry,” in addition to “provide a platform for developing benchmarks for the pricing of Islamic finance products.”

The country plans to increase in doubling its Islamic banking industry within the next three years to 12 percent of the size of its conventional one. The strategy would be to increase the number of full-fledged Islamic banks to eight from six by 2013.

The Islamic finance industry has gained new momentum over the past decade. Despite the recent gloomy economic environment globally, the industry’s total assets scaled new heights in 2009, rising to US$950 billion. Moody’s estimates that the market’s potential is worth at least US$5 trillion and the industry is continuing to expand globally. In this context, Islamic financial institutions are continuing to deliver Shari’ah-compliant returns whilst, at the same time, focusing on efficiently mitigating the associated risks through a new risk management approach, including the use of derivatives.

Press Release

Today sees the launch of a new Journal on Islamic finance from dedicated Islamic finance media entity Yasaar Media.

The Journal, called So Far – the Journal of Strategic Thinking in Islamic Finance, is written and edited by members of an Islamic finance Think Tank and is modelled on traditional academic journals. The difference with So Far is that the members of the Think Tank are predominantly practitioners rather than academics.
Member of the Think Tank are drawn from the ranks of committed Islamic finance professionals around the world and range from the Gulf and the Far East to the USA and Europe.

Each issue of So Far is dedicated to a single topic of core importance to the Islamic finance industry – and the launch issue looks at the thorny issue of the problems facing the Sukuk market. Unlike many other journals So Far is distributed free in PDF format and is available from a variety of sources including Yasaar Media thus guaranteeing maximum readership and exposure.

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Standard Chartered Bank Saadiq expects to launch an Islamic commodity derivative in the first quarter, the bank's chief executive told Reuters on Tuesday.

Bahrain-based Sakana Holistic Housing Solutions and BMI Bank (BMI), an associate of Bank Muscat, signed a Commodity Murabaha Islamic Financing facility whereby BMI Bank provided BD 3 Million funding for 1 year to Sakana towards working capital requirements.

This agreement is in continuation of a 2 year relationship which both organizations with Islamic financing facilities amounting to BD 8.2 Million extended by BMI to Sakana which were repaid on due date.

Gatehouse Bank will launch a Shari’ah-compliant Structured Trade Finance Fund in early 2010. Parnter is the wholesale Islamic market intermediary company DDCAP. The aim of the fund is to invest capital in structured trade finance transactions.

The Financial Times produced a special looking into the Future of Islamic Finance.

The download is free of charge.