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Professor Badr El Din A. Ibrahim, President of the Microfinance Unit at the Central Bank of Sudan, discusses ways to implement Shari'ah-compliant microfinance. There are some options to introduce it in the existing conventional microfinance institutions (MFIs). Hence, separate windows for conventional MFIs, not banks, are necessary to extend interest-free finance. Challenges for the Islamic windows-based business model are Shari'ah compliance and the need for changing regulatory requirements to allow for this model. The choice of Islamic windows requires raising new capital exclusively for the window.

Bahar Alsharif, Deputy Treasurer of International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, today rang the market-opening bell to celebrate the listing of a 100 million US dollar Sukuk on Nasdaq Dubai. More than a third of this total, amounting to 12.75 billion US dollars, has listed on Nasdaq Dubai in 2015. The Sukuk is the second to be listed by IFC on Nasdaq Dubai, following a 100 million US dollar Sukuk that listed in 2009. Through its latest Sukuk, IFC will support developmental financing activities in the Middle East and North Africa and other parts of the world.

Dubai-based retail and leisure developer Majid Al Futtaim has opened books for a benchmark U.S. dollar-denominated sukuk issue, which it expects to price as early as Tuesday. Initial price thoughts for the 10-year sukuk have been set in the area of 270 basis points over midswaps. The firm, which owns and operates the Carrefour franchise in the Middle East, has picked Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, HSBC, National Bank Of Abu Dhabi and Standard Chartered to arrange the sukuk. The sukuk will use the wakala structure, in which one party acts as an agent managing assets for another.

The 2015 issue of the Islamic Social Finance Report focuses on the zakah, awqaf and Islamic microfinance sectors in six countries in the sub-Saharan Africa - Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa and Tanzania. This issue of the Islamic Social Finance Report (ISFR) presents the trends, future challenges and prospects for the various segments of the Islamic social finance sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study involved collection and analysis of data and information pertaining to legal and regulatory frameworks as well as good and bad practices at macro, meso and micro levels. The observations have serious policy implications and therefore, may form the basis of further research and policy dialogue.

One of the featured sessions at the Global Islamic Economy Summit from 5-6 October was on the role of Islamic finance in financial inclusion. This is an interesting subject because it has primarily been seen only from the perspective that Islamic finance is able to promote inclusiveness by offering a Shari'ah-compliant solution to people whose exclusion is driven by their reluctance or unwillingness to engage with the conventional financial sector. While this represents an important segment of the market for Islamic finance, this mindset limits its potential greatly to just those Muslims located in jurisdictions friendly to Islamic finance and within those countries to the Muslims who have access.

The Plastic Bank is turning plastic waste into a currency that can be exchanged to help lift people out of poverty & transition them into a self-sustaining life of entrepreneurship. Re-purposing / exchange centers for plastic waste are set up in areas that have high concentration of poverty and plastic pollution. The mandate is to provide a ladder of opportunity for the world’s poor to ascend from poverty by providing access to education, opportunities and 3D printing services. The exchange process for our recycled “Social Plastic” improves the life of a disadvantaged person while cleaning our planet. The higher the worldwide demand becomes, the higher the reward will be for harvesting Social Plastic.

The Thomson Reuters Global Sukuk Index is at 118.57859 points, up from 117.98384 at the end of last month and 115.79726 at the end of last year. The Thomson Reuters Investment Grade Sukuk Index is at 117.13560 points against 116.82783 at end-September and 113.69014 at end-2014. Some of the sukuk in the pipeline are: Dubai-based retail and leisure developer Majid Al Futtaim has picked banks to arrange a potential U.S. dollar-denominated sukuk issue. Albaraka Turk has picked seven arrangers for a potential dollar-denominated sukuk issue to bolster its supplementary capital. The Tunisian government expects next year to launch a delayed sukuk issue for 1 billion dinars ($513 million).

The Gulf’s state-linked firms are being forced to wean themselves off direct government funding, and focus more on capital markets and private investment, to push ahead with their building and infrstructure projects in an era of cheap oil. Thus, the future are projects that connect to private investment. This could be a boon for bankers, who have long wanted to play a bigger role in arranging financing packages for Gulf governments. So far the shift is most evident in the smaller Gulf nations which lack huge cash reserves but have big projects in the pipeline: Oman and Bahrain. But the change is also occurring at some of the region’s largest enterprises.

The WIBC Leaderboard announced today the global rankings of Islamic banks in terms of Cost-to-Income ratio, one of the financial performance sub-indicators of the Leaderboard. No less than three Qatar-based banks have appeared in the top 5 Islamic banks in the GCC based on the Cost-to-Income ratio rankings. As per the rankings, Masraf Al Rayan and Qatar International Islamic Bank, both based in Qatar are positioned at the top of Islamic financial institutions in the GCC with a ratio of 20.6% and 24.4% respectively. The Cost-to-Income ratio is calculated based on non-interest operating cost divided by the sum of net interest income and non-interest operating income.

Noor Bank is all set to launch a Sharia-compliant and Sustainable Equity Index-linked investment, targeted at the bank’s high-net worth and priority banking customers, the bank’s treasurer Damian White said. Under the new index, the bank will offer its clients a basket of 20 chosen Sharia-compliant European equities screened for sustainability measures. The 100 per cent capital protected investment offers a fixed coupon for the first two years and the uncapped index performance at maturity at the end of three years. The format of the investment is through an Islamic structured deposit.

Oman’s first issue of sovereign Islamic bonds has received strong orders ahead of its final pricing on Tuesday. The 200 million rial (Dh1.9 billion, $520 million), five-year sukuk issue with an ijara format drew 22 orders totalling 336 million rials during the subscription period, which ran from Oct. 8 to 22, Mohammed Hussain Jawad, adviser at the finance ministry and head of the committee handling the issue, said. Results of the sale and allocations will be announced on November 3. Jawad also said the ministry planned a second sukuk issue next year, but he did not elaborate on the size or timing.

The Malaysian government announced new incentives for "ethical" Islamic bonds and home loans in the 2016 budget which was delivered in parliament on Friday, as Prime Minister Najib Razak doled out populist incentives to shore up support. Najib said Malaysia would cut taxes on issuance costs of SRI sukuk, and also that sharia-compliant loan instruments would be given a 20 percent stamp duty exemption when they were used to finance home purchases. Other initiatives for the Islamic finance sector will be announced later, Najib said without elaborating. Attracting private sector firms has become more important this year because the central bank has shifted away from selling its own sukuk.

The country’s top anti-graft body arrested two more accused of cheating public and depriving them of their hard-earned money in the multi-billion rupee Modaraba scam. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Rawalpindi circle on Saturday arrested Mufti Muhammad Idrees and Abdul Malik Bajouri, directors of Fayazi Gujranwala Industries. The accused deprived various gullible individuals of Rs8.2 billion by wooing them into investing in the scheme for attractive profits. The NAB has so far arrested 34 accused, including Mufti Muhammad Ehsanul Haq, CEO of the Fayazi Gujranwala Industries and recovered Rs1.73 billion from them.

The Malaysian government announced the new incentives for "ethical" Islamic bonds in the 2016 budget which was delivered by Prime Minister Najib Razak. The government originally introduced the concept of "ethical" sukuk to finance "sustainable and responsible investment" (SRI) in 2013. Sovereign wealth fund Khazanah sold 100 million ringgit ($23.7 million) of SRI sukuk in May this year but so far there have been no other issues. In Friday's budget, Najib said Malaysia would cut taxes on issuance costs of SRI sukuk, and also that sharia-compliant loan instruments would be given a 20 percent stamp duty exemption in certain cases.

Alkhabeer Capital, an asset management and investment firm based in Saudi Arabia, announced the signing of a strategic cooperation agreement with waqf incorporation and regulation law firm Al-Zamil & Al-Kharashi. The agreement provides for synergy between Alkhabeer Capital and Al-Zamil & Al-Kharashi Law Firm in the creation and regulation of waqf solutions. The agreement follows Alkhabeer's unveiling of its proprietary "Waqf" program earlier this year, which provides waqf wealth structuring and management advisory services to educational and charitable institutions, family offices, high net worth individuals and philanthropists who aspire to establish waqf entities.

The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank Group has launched the Islamic Social Finance Report 2015, which is the second edition in the series. This edition of the ISFR focuses on the Sub-Saharan Africa, outlining the regional trends and prospects as well as proposing policy recommendations for the Islamic social finance sector, which includes zakah, waqf and Islamic microfinance. It analyzed the regulatory environments and practices in six selected countries, namely Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa and Tanzania.

The early aughts were a dusty time in Amman, Jordan. Fueled both by optimistic real estate developers hoping to replicate the economic success of Dubai, and by an influx of Iraqi refugees across all levels of the economic spectrum, property prices and construction spiked. After 2008's financial crisis, though, much of that construction halted. Last year, Studio-X's Amman lab—the Jordanian outpost of Columbia University's worldwide network of architecture and urban planning research labs—set out to catalogue these abandoned buildings. Their developers are still waiting for enough money to complete them.

Capital Intelligence (CI) said that following the recent downgrade in the Kingdom of Bahrain’s Sovereign Ratings in September 2015, it has lowered Bahrain-based Al Baraka Islamic Bank’s (AIB) Long and Short-Term Foreign Currency Ratings to ‘BB’ and ‘B’, respectively (from ‘BB+’/‘A3’/‘Stable’). Accordingly, the Outlook for these ratings is revised to ‘Stable’ from ‘Negative’. The Support Level of ‘2’ is maintained on the grounds of the high likelihood of support from the parent ‘Al Baraka Banking Group’ (ABG), also in Bahrain.

Al-Arafah Islami Bank Ltd has donated a fund worth Tk 2.0 million for development of research on constructing crop cold storages at affordable costs. Professor Dr M Monjur Hossain of Rajshahi University received the fund from the bank under its CSR activities. Chairman of Al-Arafah Islami Bank Ltd Badiur Rahman and the bank’s managing director Mohammad Habibur Rahman were present in a ceremony arranged on the occasion, according to a statement.

Ambassador Adamu Babangida Ibrahim, a banker, has served as Nigerian Ambassador to the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Guinea. Ambassador Ibrahim is the pioneer Director-General, Jaiz Charity and Development Foundation, a charity arm of the Jaiz Bank. Jaiz Foundation uses the income that the bank cannot recognise under their profit and loss as Halal income for charity purposes. These monies are supposed to be used for charity and development purposes for interventions, especially in the poor and underserved people for economic empowerment, for intervention in health, education and so forth.