IslamicFinance.de

Zaman Bank is expected to enter Kazakhstan's Islamic banking services market in near future. The news was announced by Nurlan Abdrakhmanov, director of the financial market methodology department of Kazakh National Bank. He noted that among all the products of Islamic banking, murabaha is in the greatest demand in Kazakhstan.

Bashar Qasem is the most outspoken voice among Muslim investors in the United States. He was the only Islamic financial representative among religious shareholder advocates who sent a letter in February to protest U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban. Qasem's Azzad Asset Management firm started its work in 2005, weighing in on issues like worker safety, climate change and lobbying disclosures. This direct advocacy will test whether U.S. Muslim investors will support the sort of faith-based shareholder activism common among other religious groups. Qasem's strategy appears to be helping to differentiate his firm from other asset management firms. Azzad's assets increased 11% in 2016 to US$487 million (£393 million) at year-end. Growth included US$5.7 million into the firm’s mutual funds, the third consecutive year of inflows.

The Iranian Ministry of Economy has published the details of letters of credit (L/Cs) that Iranian banks allocated over the past few years. The country’s international trade picked up considerable pace when the sanctions against Iran were lifted. According to the ministry’s report, Bank Melli Iran allocated 154 letters of credit worth $42.71 million over a four-year period (2013-16). During 2013-16, Bank Keshavarzi opened 19,253 L/Cs worth over $10.5 billion. It also played an important role in issuing 21 bank guarantees valued at $15 million. Bank Mellat also issued 32 export guarantees worth $15.4 million and four import guarantees worth $13.5 million. Export Development Bank of Iran opened 550 L/Cs and issued more than 1,750 bank guarantees during 2013-15 to emerge as one of the main forces in the Iranian economy.

The Managing Director of Jaiz Bank, Hassan Usman, has assured that the bank’s loan profile is very healthy. Jaiz Bank, he noted, was not heavily or significantly exposed to the oil sector, but the bank’s exposure is to real estate. While justifying the listing of the bank’s shares in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), he said Jaiz Bank’s activities remain transparent and open. Jaiz Bank has challenges like any growing institution. One of such challenges has to do with perception, as many people thought it was a charity organization. Other challenges include the enabling environment like infrastructure for non-interest banking like liquidity instruments. Another challenge is the limited number of qualified trained manpower to manage Islamic banking. Inspite of these challenges, Jaiz Bank has proved itself to be sustainable. It has grown into a national franchise with branches in South and South West and is also opening more branches in other parts of the country.

In #Nigeria Jaiz Bank has accumulated funds and is now ready to massively invest in Sukuk to finance in specific infrastructure projects in the country. Managing Director Hassan Usman said that the bank, being an Islamic bank, could not invest in interests yielding instruments and therefore had to wait until Sukuk was ready. He added that there are off-shore funds held by those who share similar non-interests philosophy of Jaiz Bank which could be brought into the country. Usman said that from a capital base of N5 billion, the bank has grown its capital base to about N50 billion. From a deposit of N3. 5 billion, it has grown to about N60 billion. From the initial three branches as a Regional Bank, Jaiz Bank has grown into a National Bank with 30 branches across the nation.

Maybank Islamic is turning to its home markets for growth, in particularly Indonesia where it manages $2 billion worth of assets and is aiming to compete with domestic Islamic banks. According to CEO Mohamed Rafique Merican, the bank could grow beyond its core markets of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, but expansion in other markets would be opportunistic. Indonesia remains a key market for the bank, after Malaysia which accounts for 90% of the bank's business. As part of the ASEAN banking integration framework (ABIF), Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed in August to give their banks greater access to each other's markets. The move would give Malaysia's Islamic banks a potential lead to tap into the world's biggest Muslim-majority country, and one that continues to restrict to foreign lenders.

It seem like the ongoing bitter battle between the managers of Sabana Shariah-compliant Reit and some disgruntled investors will come to a head at an extraordinary general meeting End of April which has been called at the behest of 66 unit holders who began a campaign against Sabana Real Estate Investment Management.
Reason was dissatisfaction with the Reit manager's lacklustre performance and 3 years of falling distributions per unit. At the EGM 4 resolutions will be tabled one of which ask for Sabana Real Estate Investment Management to be removed.

Trustbank from Suriname is one step closer to open its doors to customers interested in Islamic banking products after it signed a new licensing deal with the Kuwaiti based software vendor, Path Solutions, to implement Islamic Banking and Investment System as a new core banking platform.
This is major thing for the Path Solutions, as it’s the company’s first Islamic core banking software deal in the Americas. The company won the deal as one of three shortlisted vendors besides Oracle FS, Temenos. Path Solutions won the deal because of ist Sharia compliance, product functionality and technological superiority.

Yielders, a UK based equity crowdfunding provider, has just attained the first Islamic Banking certification and become the first FinTech firm in the West to do so. Yielders have developed something that looks pretty innovative, pragmatic and could prove tob e competitive in a low yield environment. Islamic banking has been around for more than 60 years. However, Sharia compliant Financial institutions only manage 1% of the global assets.

The secretary general of the IFSB will retire next week, according to a statement. Jaseem Ahmed will step down middle of April after leading the IFSB 6 years.
The process for the selection of a new secretary general has begun. Zahid ur Rehman Khokher acting as interim secretary general.

To meet the SDGs by 2030, more data is needed and collecting it can be time-consuming and expensive. Governments can select the data collection methods and analytical tools that will best help them reach their SDG targets.
Fortunately, there are several approaches to this. Longitudinal data on household expenditure can be a better way of measuring poverty and income inequality in Asia and the Pacific compared to the cross-sectional data analysis currently used across the region. Longitudinal data tracks the same kinds of data over long periods of time. Cross-sectional data is collected from many subjects at a single point in time.

The Bank of England said it would develop a sharia-compliant liquidity tool for use by Islamic banks, to attract business from the industry's core centres. London has for some time sought to position itself as a global hub for Islamic finance.
The central bank has issued a consultation paper on a fund-based deposit model, that would help Islamic lenders to meet regulatory requirements for liquid asset buffers. It was stated, that the facility is unlikely to be ready before the spring of 2018, and it has yet to decide on whether it will develop a liquidity insurance facility. However, the tool would be a welcomed development for Britain's Islamic banks. These include Gatehouse Bank, the Bank of London and the Middle East, Al Rayan Bank and a unit of Qatar Islamic Bank.
The pricing would be comparable with conventional tools, and attractive for Islamic banks.

Al Hilal Bank announced appointment of Alex Coelho as new chief executive officer.
With more than two decades of experience in the global financial industry, he will be responsible for reinforcing the Al Hilal Bank’s position as a leading Islamic bank in the UAE and Kazakhstan.
In the past, Coelho had leadership roles between the Middle East and New York, and co-led global financial institutions coverage in the US, Canada, Latin America, Asia and Europe, according to a statement.

The IFSB sees growing demand for fintech within the Malaysian Islamic financial services system, because customers are looking for alternatives.
IFSB secretary-general Jaseem Ahmed said „demand for fintech within Islamic finance had increased following the global financial crisis“ and further that “There are tremendous opportunities for fintech within Islamic finance. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, there has been a loss of confidence, so people are looking for alternatives,”
Jaseem added that commercial banks are really taking up fintech to reach out and improve the attractiveness of their products at a lower cost and also said that he expected sukuk issuance to continue remaining strong in Malaysia.
The IFSB event, which ends tomorrow, comprises forums that bring together key stakeholders of the Islamic financial services industry.

The International Finance Magazine (IFM) granted Eng. Ziad Tarek Aba Al-Khail, CEO and Managing Director of Aljazira Capital, the “Best Brokerage CEO – KSA Award” in 2016. Aljazira Capital was also granted the “Fastest Growing Islamic Brokerage House-KSA Award” in 2016.
Ziad Aba Al-Khail was really proud of the IMF’s appreciation of the performance. Such a constant international recognition of his team is a living example of our constant commitment to provide our customers with the best services as well as adopt up-to-date strategies in world trade in order to create new horizons for their customers and give them access to regional and global capital markets.”
Ziad Aba Al-Khail also expressed his gratitude and thanks to Aljazira Capital team whose efforts led to this achievement, and added: “This remarkable achievement is the fruit of our company strategy in rendering and managing an integrated system of Islamic-oriented financial services and investment solutions of unique value and high quality.”

Samantha Lord-Konare converted to Islam six years ago and then she found herself in a quandary because of a student and credit card loan that her new religion prohibited. Lord-Konare vowed not to use her credit card but resolving the issue of her student loan was more challenging.
She consulted the imam who presented her with four options. She could pay off her loan in one lump sum, obtain an interest-free loan, receive the money as a gift, or do her best to pay off her student loan as quickly as she could. "Of course, I had to choose the last. I could never ask someone for that amount of money," said Lord-Konare.
Islamic scholars say there is a clear prohibition on usury in the Koran. The Shariah also stipulates that Muslims should acquire wealth in a legal and ethical manner; any element of usury, gambling or chancing is forbidden.

NCB Capital, Saudi Arabia’s leading provider of wealth management and investment services, and the Kingdom’s largest asset manager, has announced the launch of its Pan European Real Estate Fund with more than $150 million raised through a private placement.
NCB Capital has partnered with Fidelity International, a leading global asset manager, to invest in commercial properties, including office, retail, logistics/industrial and mixed use, located in key European property markets including France, Germany, Benelux and the United Kingdom. Favorable currency conversion rates, robust legal and regulatory environments, coupled with consistent growth expectations of the core European economies make this an opportune time to invest in a solid real estate market.

Katharine Budd, the chief executive and co-founder of Now Money, a Dubai-based fintech start-up, explains how fintech works.
This is a new financial services phenomenon. While nowadays you might be able to operate your bank account from a website or mobile app, but the systems behind these online user interfaces have barely changed since they were implemented in the 1970s. The international payment transfer system Swift still runs on the telephone systems. This means that no matter how nice the front-end website your account is on, the transactions displayed are still run off legacy systems, which can lead to legacy issues such as delays in processing transactions and potentially losing the transaction in the system altogether.
New start-ups are innovating where banks are stagnating and are cooperating with regulators and cybersecurity experts and developing new technology. These organisations have become know as “fintechs” and their purpose can range from offering customers alternative ways to bank, usually through mobile, to using advanced analytics to provide investment recommendations.

Saudi Aramco has plans that would raise 11.25 billion riyals (3 billion US-Dollar) from its debut Islamic bond. That would boost the size of the sale because of investor demand. King & Spalding Partner Rizwan Kanji weighs in on "Bloomberg Markets: Middle East."

GCC is expected to account for about 31% of sovereign bond issuances from emerging markets this year. The expected 2017 sovereign issues will be distributed among GCC, Eastern Europe Middle East Africa and Latin America, according to forecasts by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Issues from the GCC has been increasing rapidly mainly due to low oil prices, with some new issuers in 2016, and analysts expect the 2017 issuance to continue to be high. Among those, Kuwait inaugurated the external sovereign debt market with $8 billion (Dh29.3 billion) to finance a budget deficit resulting from low oil prices. Sovereign issuance for 2017 is forecast to be 6% higher compared to the previous year. In 2016, sovereigns issued $135 billion, mainly from Latin America, while corporates issued about $300 billion, mainly from Asia. Analysts expect gross sovereign external issuance to come in at $144bn in 2017.