IslamicFinance.de

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.

IslamicFinance.de is calling Islamic financial institutions to become member of the UNEP Finance Inititiave to learn and contribute to international best practice in ethical and faith based finance:

"UNEP FI is a global partnership between UNEP and the financial sector. Over 180 institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UNEP to understand the impacts of environmental and social considerations on financial performance."

membership information package:
http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/forms/MembershipInformationPack.pdf

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.

Yasaar media published a new report called Islamic Finance in North America 2009 for free download, which is co-published by Codexa Capital, UM Financial Group, King & Spalding, and Doha Islamic.

According to the report Islamic finance in North America has developed along two quite separate paths:

• The first path focuses on retail Islamic finance and centres mostly on home financing products and credit cards.

• The second path involves a number of high profile GCC-based Islamic investment banks and their deployment of hundreds of millions of dollars in private equity and real estate developments in North America.

Read the full report for free at the link below.

Reuters reported on 7 January that the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority (DMCC) and Shariah Capital launched an index tracking the performance of Islamic hedge funds investing in commodities.The index performance will be calculated and reported by Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO). The index is based on four hedge funds, part of the DSAM Kauthar Commodity Fund and investing in gold, energy, natural resources and mining. Each fund has received start capital of $50 million from the DMCC.