IslamicFinance.de

Pakistan has an incredibly active civil society, with 200,000 people volunteering their skills full-time in 2004. Studies also prooved that individuals donate significant contributions to non-governmental organizations. South Asian cultural values of responsibility for family and community could also account for a high number of donations to individuals. Other factors such as anonymity also elucidate why most estimations underpredict the total amount of donations given by Pakistanis each year.
Zakat, the fourth of the five pillars of Islam, asks Muslims to donate a certain percentage of their savings to a charity of their choice. The rule only engages to individuals/families with savings greater than 2.5% of their annual income after all lawful expenses have been met, and only funds that have been saved for a year or longer are counted.

It is possible that the Commonwealth of Independent States will become the next frontier for Islamic finance. At this point, six Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizstan and Tajikistan are members of the CIS. Moreover, Russia has also 20m indigenous Muslims in Russia, mostly concentrated in the semi-autonomous Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.
Although the relationship between Russia and its Muslims wasn't very good, it has started to make concerted efforts to reach out to Turkey, Iran and the Arab nations to the south and Pakistan, Malaysia and the Islamic democracies of South East Asia.

At the International Conference on Islamic Microfinance, held in June in Islamabad, Pakistan participated over 500 industry experts, practitioners and stakeholders from 20 countries trying to promote Islamic Microfinance and chart its future growth.
Mr. Ahmad, Chief Executive Officer of Pakistan’s Microfinance Network, presented the challenges facing the industry and offered plausible solutions.
Mr. Christopher Candland, Associate Professor Department of Political Science and Director South Asia Studies Program, Wellesely College, USA, revealed that major researches on commercial microfinance show how the growth of microfinance has far defeated its effective alleviation of poverty.

Mohammad Yahya Maroufi, secretary general of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), revealed that his organization has agreed to certify a bank to promote economic cooperation with banks in the Islamic countries.
He added that the plans include to open a trade market for its member states.
The ECO curent members are: Islamic Republic of Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

It seems that Pakistan is planning to take advantage of 36% annual growth in the nation’s Islamic banking assets by resuming sales of sukuk to lenders.

Meezan Bank from Pakistan has accomplished the country's first short-term Sukuk deal.
The PKR1.5bn ($17.3m) Sukuk was launched by KAPCO (Kot Addu Power Company Ltd), Pakistan's largest power company. It means a six month Musharakah and a Shari'ah compliant alternative to conventional short-term paper.

Meezan Bank had a huge influx of funds this year and Muhammad Asad, executive vice president and chief investment officer of Al Meezan Investment Management, stated that it is because of the Government of Pakistan's Sukuk program, which has enjoyed enormous local demand. He added that the sukuk enjoyed high levels of demand because it is tradable and offers competitive returns to the investors.
At this point Al Meezan is Pakistan's largest private sector asset management company.

The study ‘’ Non-Productivity of Microfinance Loans in Pakistan” by Mazhar M.“analyzes the productivity of microfinance loans in Pakistan. It is based on field work with foundations and bank clients, and data received from MFI and microfinance bank employees. It discusses:
Principles and objectives of microfinance;
• Challenges faced by Pakistan’s microfinance sector;
• Principles and methodologies of microcredit;
• Microfinance programs in Pakistan;
• Comparison of microfinance methodologies in Pakistan;
• Principles of Islamic microfinance;
• Difference between productive and non-productive loans;
• United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Capital Intelligence (CI) announced Bahrain-based AlBaraka Islamic Bank (AIB)'s Long and Short-Term Foreign Currency ratings at BB+ and A3 respectively. These ratings integrate a one-notch uplift on the basis of AlBaraka Banking Group (ABG) ownership, the parent, the support level being affirmed at 2.
Although it's a small bank, AIB now requests a significant market share of Islamic banking assets in Pakistan through its recent acquisition in that country.
AIB's strenghts are liquidity and capital adequacy.

At the recent International Takaful Summit 2011 the experts from Takaful stated that they expect to reach $12 billion by the end of this year.
Ernst & Young think that emerging markets will be the key actors leading Takaful’s growth.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Malaysia are currently the top three Takaful markets. They are followed by c, Bangladesh, Sudan, and Pakistan.

Microfinance is compatible to work with any model of icrofinance and it presents the alternative to all the products of conventional system.
Zubair Mughal, Chief Executive Officer of AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics Pakistan, underlined the fact that Islam has given the best system for poverty alleviation and both Muslims and non-Muslims will have the possiblity to benefit from it.

Maybank Islamic, Asia-Pacific's largest syariah lender, is going to expand its business in the Asean region and may offer Islamic stockbroking services through Singapore stockbroker Kim Eng, which its parent recently acquired.
The bank's parent Maybank is embarking on an expansion drive to become a regional bank. It operates in 14 countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bahrain.

In order to grow its business in Pakistan, Standard Chartered plans to focus on expanding its consumer banking line as well as its Islamic banking portfolio. this statement was given by the bank’s Pakistan head, Mohsin Nathani.
Nathani also revealed that the bank plans on expanding its credit card and personal loans portfolio in addition to expanding the number of products on offer to its retail customers.

AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking & Economics (CIBE) and AKHUWAT from Pakistan will be the hosts of World’s Largest Conference on Islamic Microfinance. The conference will be held on June 13, 2011 at Faisal Auditorium Islamabad and delegates from 12 countries and 800 participants will attend this event.
Through this event light will be shed on topics like methodology of poverty reduction, Zakat, Shariah implications, Dard-e-Hasna, Waqf models, latest trends of islamic microfinance, technological application of poverty alleviation, usage of islamic microfinance in non muslim societies and other issues.

Takaful Emarat wants to launch new products and as a result it expects gross written premiums to surge to Dh65 million ($17.7 million) in 2011.
Ghassan Marrouche stated that the new savings products, combined with the expectation that medical insurance will become compulsory in the United Arab Emirates would help the rise of written premiums. He added that demand is already increasing for Islamic insurance, or takaful, products in markets such as India, Pakistan, Jordan and Syria.

Pakistan will recieve $3bn from IDB for infrastructure, energy, agriculture, education and health projects. This is the largest commitment for IDB in the 35 years of partnership. This what soever doesn't mean that IDB will support the government of Pakistan budgetary.

The Islamic Development Bank Group has pledged financial support worth $3 billion for socio-economic development in Pakistan.
A high level technical mission led by Mr. Gurbuz Gonul from the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank group visited Pakistan during the period 13-22 March 2011 to embark on developing Member Country Partnership strategy (MCPS) that will lay out the partnership and cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Islamic Development Bank Group over the next four years (2012-2015).

CapAsia is going to provide $20.5m of equity capital to finance two wind farms in Pakistan. The firm made the investment through its Islamic Infrastructure Fund (IIF), a $262m vehicle sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank.

The Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) Pakistan has appointed Azhar Aslam as head of Islamic banking.
Azhar Aslam joins the bank from Dubai Islamic Bank where he was Country Head, Corporate and Investment Banking.

Al Baraka Pakistan Limited (ABPL) will enter the mutual fund industry by June this year and funds will be established in collaboration with a well-established fund manager.
ABPL President Shafqaat Ahmed highlighted that the growth of Islamic income funds has outpaced the growth of the overall mutual fund industry in recent months.