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The Tunisian Islamic insurance company "El Amana Takaful," set up as part of a Tunisian-Saudi partnership project, came into service on Wednesday. This Islamic insurance company operates with paid-up capital of TND 10 million ($6.3 million). Saudi businessman Mr. Hassan Salem Al-Amari was appointed as the chairman, and Hussein Al-Daghri was named the deputy chairman. The company was licensed in April. Most of its shareholders are conventional insurers, including Comar, Astree, and Carte – each with 18% share – and Tunis Re, with a 6% stake.

Malayan Banking (Maybank) has set up Maybank Islamic Asset Management (Maybank IAM) company in London. Maybank IAM's CEO Azmeen Adnan said the company aims to become a key player and catalyst in the development of the global Islamic asset management landscape. The company now offers a fixed priced Shariah real estate backed fund, the Amanah Hartanah Bumiputra, which has gained popularity among investors. In addition, it is managing direct equity portfolio mandates for haj funds and direct mandates investing in Asean countries. Collectively, a total of US$8 billion (RM25.17 billion) worth of Islamic assets under management resides within Maybank. Maybank IAM is owned by Maybank through Maybank Asset Management Group.

Amanie Shariah Screening system app, launched by Amanie Nexus Sdn Bhd, screens and filters all public-listed equity/stocks in the global stock exchange to produce the universe of Shariah investable stocks. With this app, it is possible to download and check the Shariah status of over 33,000 stocks worldwide any time and anywhere before making any investments. Newly released, the app is available in Android variant on Google Play Store before it is released a Windows Phone 8 version and Blackberry 10. Razi Pahlavi, chief executive officer of Amanie Nexus, feels that Malaysia has sufficient talents in app development. However, the commercialisation stage is where most developers will need help and guidance, he notes.

Cairo-based Ridge Islamic Capital plans to launch the first dedicated Islamic fund of funds in the Middle East by the end of this year, with an initial capital base of $150 million. The Bahrain-domiciled fund will invest across a pool of sharia-compliant funds around the world. Ridge Islamic will contribute $15 million to the fund's capital. The Ridge Islamic fund will be U.S. dollar-denominated and use controls designed to limit risk, including exposure caps by country, sector and asset class. The rules will allow up to 20 percent of the fund's net asset value to be allocated directly into sharia-compliant financial instruments; up to 40 percent of net asset value could go into cash and Islamic money market instruments. The fund has a three-member sharia board with scholars from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The European Union has lifted sanctions against Iran Insurance Company following defense presented by the corporation, its Managing Director Javad Sahamian said. The sanctions caused that letters of credit guaranteed by the company were refused by others, but after ease of sanctions the company can work actively in insuring LCs in areas such as freight. Sahamian said the corporation has managed to control sanctions considerably to prevent any great loss and pave the way for more growth.

First Gulf Bank (FGB) has increased its stakes in Aseel Islamic Finance, through a purchase agreement which has raised the bank's ownership from 40% to 100%. With a paid-up capital of AED 800 million, Aseel is now FGB's Islamic banking and finance arm. Aseel will offer a full-fledged range of Islamic solutions, such as Business Financing, Murabaha and Ijarah products for SMEs, Takaful, Investment products, Corporate Deposits, and Trade facilities in addition to Real Estate services. It will also share responsibility for managing the bank's existing Emirati Al Awwal Islamic savings certificates programme, Transaction Accounts and Individual Deposits. Aseel Islamic Finance will maintain an independent board of directors with Hana Al Rostamani as the Chairperson, while Javed Afzal was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer.

Bank Islami Pakistan Limited has planned to issue rights shares up to Rs750 million, as the exemption granted by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for minimum capital requirement (MCR) expired on March 31. The SBP had declined to extend the extension unless Bank Islami improves its equity position substantially. The board of the bank will consider the rights issue at the board meeting scheduled on October 31, where the price of the right shares will be decided. The SBP through a circular increased the MCR for banks up to Rs10 billion to be achieved in a phased manner by December 31. Moreover, the central bank had also advised the bank to submit concrete time bound capital plan by March 31, 2013 to comply with the future and prevailing regulatory capital requirements.

The Saudi Arabian and Malaysian cooperative and Islamic insurance (takaful) markets are the only two that are seeing growth especially in new policies and profitability, according to the report 'Global Takaful Insights 2013' by Ernst & Young. Too many operators are pursuing an insufficient number of risks to increase their gross written contributions (GWC). The Saudi Arabian Monetary (SAMA) directed all insurance operators in the Kingdom to align with the cooperative insurance model. Saudi Arabia is the single largest Islamic insurance market in the world. Meanwhile, Malaysia has emerged as the world's largest family (life) takaful market, with a proven model and regulatory clarity. In the near to medium term, traditional growth markets, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Malaysia, continue to ride on favorable market conditions and a young demographics structure, the report concludes.

The Board of Directors of Daman Islamic Insurance Company (Beema) has approved the financial statements of the Company for the nine months ended September 30, 2013. Announcing the financial results, Beema Chairman Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani said the Company’s net profit has crossed QR40m during the period, up 111 percent compared with the same period last year. Income from investment increased 154 percent during the period. The premium collection of the company recorded more than QR160m, up 24 percent, compared with the corresponding period in 2012. Sheikh Jassim noted the portfolio of shareholders recorded 119 percent growth in the profit against the same period of 2012.

Al Salam Bank Bahrain has led investment into a new waste-to-biodiesel plant in Hong Kong. The plant is operated by ASB Biodiesel, a Hong Kong-based company under the chairmanship of HRH. It is capable of processing waste oils into 100,000 tonnes of biodiesel annually. The construction cost of the plant was $165 million. Specifically, ASB Biodiesel collects waste cooking oil and up to 550 tonnes of grease trap waste per day, then processes the waste using multi-feedstock technology from Austrian designer BDI Bioenergy International.

Fitch Ratings has assigned Al Hilal Bank's (Al Hilal; A+/Stable/F1) USD2.5bn trust certificate issuance programme a final Long-term rating of 'A+' and a final Short-term rating of 'F1'. At the same time, Fitch has assigned Al Hilal's USD500m senior unsecured fixed rate certificates (sukuk) issued under the programme a Long-term rating of 'A+'. The certificates have a profit rate of 3.267% per annum and mature on 8 October 2018. The ratings assigned to the programme and the certificates are driven solely by Al Hilal's Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs), as the sukuk structure is viewed as an originator-backed/asset-based structure. The ratings of the trust certificate issuance programme and the certificates are highly sensitive to any rating action on Al Hilal.

More than 250 leading players, key regulators and thought leaders in the international Islamic banking and finance industry will be gathering on the 6th & 7th of November 2013 in Djibouti, for the 2nd Annual Islamic Banking Summit Africa (IBSA 2013). Held under the theme “Islamic Finance and Takaful: Capturing the Africa Opportunity”, IBSA 2013 will provide a platform to specifically focus on the opportunities and challenges that are forging the Islamic banking, finance, Takaful/ReTakaful, and investment landscape in Africa. IBSA will also provide a platform for industry players seeking to further build their presence in the evolving African markets for Islamic finance and to explore emerging opportunities which will further increase the momentum of growth.

Aeon Credit Service, which has been deliberating on a cash-raising exercise to beef up its capital adequacy ratio (CAR), is said to have chosen the route for a perpetual notes or sukuk issue instead of equity. Analysts are expecting the proposed perpetual notes or sukuk, which is subject to the authority's approval, to be announced soon given the non-bank financial institution's 16.3% CAR as of Aug 20, 2013 is nearing Bank Negara Malaysia's minimum requirement of 16%. Aeon Credit could raise some RM190 million from the proposed exercise to increase its CAR to 22% based on its shareholders funds. No significant dilution on Aeon Credit's earnings per share is expected. Aeon Credit's D/E ratio surged to 5.67 times as of Aug 20, 2013 from 4.6 times as of May 20, 2013.

The Indonesian banking and property mogul Dato Sri Tahir has donated 75 million US dollars towards programs for Indonesia's most needy. Ten million are for family planning, and 65 million for The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The billionaire's gift is the largest donation the Fund has ever received from an individual in a developing country. Besides, Bill Gates through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also donating 65 million dollars to the Global Fund. The money will be used for prevention activities against HIV and AIDS. Moreover, the Fund has distributed 8.8 million bednets for malaria and supports detection and treatment of TB. Although philanthropy for social welfare isn't too familiar in Indonesia, wealthy individuals in Asia will be encouraged to give more generously if they see their contribution is being put to good use.

Malaysian takaful players are poised for a dearth in talent and must prepare their human resource (HR) requirements to avert the inevitable situation within the next five years. This is due to the fact that takaful players will have to hire more people following the introduction of the Islamic Financial Act (IFSA) 2013 which requires them to separate their family and general takaful businesses into separate entities. There is already a shortage of valuable industry personnels not just in the takaful industry but also in the conventional insurance industry now and this will be exacerbated when the IFSA comes into force.

Malaysia continues to take the lead in the Asean takaful industry with 71% share of gross takaful contributions, according to a report by Ernst & Young. Malaysia has a largely underinsured population with a low insurance penetration rate and strong government support for the Islamic finance sector. With a proven model and regulatory clarity, the country is set to further build on this leadership position. At present, Malaysia’s takaful sector derives nearly 78% of its net contributions from the family takaful business. However, globally the recent trends suggest an deceleration of the industry. Hence, expansion of the takaful industry is relatively slowing as firms struggle for scale and face growing competition, but the sector is still poised to sustain double-digit growth, said the report in its overall findings.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has reported a 12.4 percent drop in third-quarter net profit, missing analysts' average forecast. QIB posted a nine-month net profit of 975.1 million riyals, compared with 1.1 billion riyals for the same period last year. The third-quarter results, with a net profit of 345.1 million riyals ($94.8 million), missed the average forecast of eight analysts in a Reuters poll. QIB's total third-quarter income from financing and investing activity dropped to 738.4 million riyals from 773.8 million riyals a year earlier. Fee and commission income fell to 91.4 million riyals from 119.7 million riyals. QIB shares closed 0.3 percent lower on Sunday. They have fallen 9.7 percent year-to-date.

Expansion of the takaful industry is slowing as firms struggle for scale and face growing competition, according to a report by Ernst & Young. Driven largely by Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, takaful globally is expected to grow by 16 percent annually in coming years compared to an average 22 percent rate between 2007 and 2011. But firms have expanded in narrow product segments such as auto insurance which are saturated by competitors, sparking price competition to gain market share. A shift from general insurance to more profitable life business remains unlikely in the Gulf because of comfortable government-funded safety nets. Geographical expansion is one way out, but this is difficult because of expensive regulatory requirements and the lack of a standard approach to sharia-compliance across the world.

The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), a member of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB), and the government of Senegal and have announced the African state’s plan to relaunch a XOF 100 billion ($200 million) sukuk project next year. Amadou Ba, Senegal’s minister of economy and finance, has reaffirmed the interest of his government of Senegal to diversify its financing instruments. This project is the beginning of an ambitious program which could lead to the financing of innovative infrastructure and energy projects through sukuk issuances. This project is the first of its kind in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and aims to promote Islamic finance as an alternative instrument to finance the economies of the member states of the union.

Islamic finance can be seen as part of a wider movement towards the promotion of sustainability as a key element of economic life. The basic premise under sharia law that no one should profit purely from money leads to a shift in both parties' perspective away from the short-term transaction and towards the longer-term relationship and its consequences. Islamic finance is becoming an important part of important emerging economies in the Middle East and Asia – high-growth markets where American businesses will want to compete and succeed. And the Muslim population in the United States is continuing to grow and can be an engine for further growth here at home. Ignoring these developments will be harmful to American banks and investors, as well as to the American economy itself.