IslamicFinance.de

Companies in the GCC region will have to formulate effective retirement plans if they are to remain competitive in the market place, so says Mercer. The International human resources consultancy has highlighted the trend for expatriates to extend their stay in GCC countries to call for a greater emphasis to be given to planning for life after work for employees. Mercer says that there are several benefits for employers in the formulation of retirement plans for their workforce, including the positioning of a company as an employer of choice amongst competitors, the attraction of international expertise and the retention of key talent. Mercer also draws attention to enhanced employee engagement as being another key benefit.

The average length of expatriates stay in GCC countries, counting in all major expatriate groups such as Western, Arab and Indians, exceeds 10 years and this group forms a major target market for asset managers, according to Invesco’s sixth annual Middle East Asset Management Study. The Invesco survey of asset managers showed that contrary to popular belief, the average stay of various expatriate groups in GCC countries are longer, with non-resident Indians (NRIs) exceeding 15 years. In summary, there was a strong consensus that the number of GCC-based retirees would increase from all expatriate segments if GCC governments changed the immigration rules and encouraged retirees.

The World Islamic Banking Conference (WIBC) continues to live up to its reputation after officially announcing today that its 22nd annual edition will provide industry leaders with an opportunity to critically assess Islamic finance’s 40-year history. This coming December, regulators, CEOs, scholars and other leaders from the Middle East, East Asia, Africa and Europe will assess and reflect upon the achievements, challenges and opportunities in the rapidly growing Islamic finance industry, currently amounting to $2 trillion. Some of the industry’s preeminent leaders will address the core question of how the current system can converge with its original proposition.

Qatar National Bank is among suitors that submitted final bids for Kuwait Finance House’s Malaysian operations. KFH is evaluating offers from Qatar National Bank and at least one other party. It may not proceed with the sale unless it can agree on a high enough price. State-controlled Qatar National Bank has been expanding overseas to reduce its reliance on its home market. It has spent US$3 billion on acquisitions since 2012. Kuwait Finance House’s Malaysian unit had a book value of 1.7 billion ringgit (US$395 million) and total assets of 10.5 billion ringgit at the end of December. Offers for the business were affected by the difficult economic environment in the country.

A number of initiatives are demonstrating the rising momentum of Islamic finance in China. Chinese brokerage Southwest Securities forged a partnership with Qatar International Islamic Bank to pave the way for Islamic finance transactions in the country. The Qatari bank confirmed with IFN that it will leverage on this MoU to develop an Islamic finance framework for China. Chinese banking giant, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), through its leasing arm entered into a collaborative agreement with the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), which is targeted to focus on multiple lines to develop Islamic capabilities and opportunities.

DBS Group Holdings is winding down its Islamic banking unit, The Islamic Bank of Asia (IB Asia), which it said has been unable to achieve economies of scale. The process of winding down the unit will likely take two to three years. IB Asia, which had been named "Best Islamic Bank in Singapore" by Islamic Finance News in January this year, offers wealth management services to high net worth customers. It also provides treasury, corporate advisory and capital market services to businesses. The move to wind down IB Asia is subject to obtaining approval from its shareholders and receiving regulatory approvals, DBS said.

The Bahrain Islamic Index, a tool to measure changes in values of Sharia-compliant securities listed on the Bahrain Bourse (BHB), was launched yesterday. In a statement issued after the launch, BHB chief executive Shaikh Khalifa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa said the index will be computed from the prices of 17 selected stocks, all of which comply with standards and regulations set by the bourse's Sharia committee. The index will act as a standardised tool, adopted by investors in order to measure the fluctuations of their investment portfolios in the companies computed within the Islamic Index.

Bambang Bodjonegoro, the Indonesian Minister of Finance, today rang the market-opening bell to celebrate the listing on Nasdaq Dubai of four Sukuk valued at six billion US dollars (AED 22 billion), issued by the Indonesian government under its Trust Certificate Issuance Programme since 2012. The Islamic bond listings are the largest ever carried out by a sovereign issuer in Dubai. Indonesia’s four Sukuk listings comprise one issuance of two billion USD dollars AED 7.3 billion), two of 1.5 billion US dollars (AED 5.5 billion) each, and one of one billion USD dollars (AED 3.7 billion). All listed on Nasdaq Dubai on May 31, 2015.

Several African sub-regional central banks Monday commenced a two-day seminar in Banjul on building Islamic finance in Gambia. The forum, held at the Ocean Bay Hotel in Bakau, brought together participants from Nigeria, Malaysia, Sierra Leone and Gambia. In his opening statement, Abdoulie Jallow, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, said the forum is the final activity of the project titled “Enhancing financial literacy and capacity building on Islamic instruments”. The project is funded by the Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

China’s Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd said it’s open to funding proposals from various domestic and international financial institutions, which include the possibility of setting up a sukuk programme and issuances to partly fund its proposed projects including the Forest City project in Johor. The company is reported to be interested in raising as much as RM800 million from a sukuk issuance. Forest City will be a mixed development project consists of commercial, residential, educational, healthcare centres and recreational facilities including man-made sandy beaches. The construction work on the project started in midMarch 2015.

Companies will need to pay more to borrow money through sukuk even as Malaysia, the global driver of Islamic finance, faces jitters amid a harsher economic environment and heightened political risk. Higher premiums would be necessary to attract investors and to provide investors with reasonable buffers against higher interest rates in the event US hikes its interest rates by year-end, said Meor Amri Meor Ayob, CEO of Bond Pricing Agency Malaysia. Aside from some domestic-specific uncertainties, the factors that are said to be affecting the Malaysian sukuk market — low oil prices, slower exports growth — are also similarly affecting other emerging markets and oil exporting countries.

The Islamic Investment Infrastructure Bank, a unit of the Jeddah based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is expected to be founded in 2016 as a new cross-border institution jointly by the IDB, Indonesia and Turkey. The bank will act to raise funds by means of sukuk issuances to fund infrastructure projects. The bank’s founding members will invite other countries to join as shareholders. Indonesia is also among the 57 prospective founding members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) founded in late 2014. This international financial institution has been regarded as China’s strategy to reduce the influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank.

A delegation from Azzad Asset Management joined representatives from the Saudi Arabian and U.S. business communities in Washington, D.C., for a conference designed to foster trade ties between the two nations. Azzad has investments in Saudi Arabia through its international fixed-income fund. The U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, organized by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority in conjunction with the Council of Saudi Chambers and the U.S.-Saudi Business Council, served as an opportunity for executives and officials to explore investments in energy, transportation, health, education, and financial services. Signing ceremonies between U.S. and Saudi businesses were a feature of the event.

REDmoney Events in partnership with Islamic Business and Finance Development Fund (IBFD Fund), will organize the IFN CIS & Russia Forum on the 9th of December 2015 in Moscow. The event is expected to draw market players and regulators from key Islamic finance markets globally and within the Russian Federation and CIS. Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Azerbaijan have developed Islamic banking since 2005 resulting in the creation of number of Islamic financial institutions. On its part, Tajikistan has recently started preparing a draft law on Islamic banking and finance. Russia as the largest country in CIS is also involved in Islamic finance development process.

Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) and Thomson Reuters, with support from the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre (DIEDC) released the 'Digital Islamic Economy Report' for 2015, in collaboration with DinarStandard. The report serves as a precursor to the second edition of the Global Islamic Economy Summit (GIES) that will be held from October 5-6 in Dubai, UAE. Among its key findings, the report estimates that the overall value contributed by Muslim consumers worldwide to the global digital economy in 2014 stood at US$107 billion, representing 5.8% of the total global digital economy. The report focuses on a new and a more specialized area of Digital Islamic Consumer Services.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer global head of Islamic finance Tarek El-Assra has quit the firm to join Morgan, Lewis & Bockius as a partner, as the Morgan Lewis targets the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. El-Assra joins Morgan Lewis’ Dubai office in a bid to build its cross-border Islamic finance and investment offering specifically targeting the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The departure is Freshfields’ second exit in recent weeks after Shearman & Sterling hired its co-head of telecoms, media and technology, Frank Miller, as the latter firm bids to pull in a greater array of M&A in the City.

Network Economics of Abundance is not just a new economic theory, but a new philosophy of economics is required because the entirety of existing economic theory has been constructed around the assumption of scarcity, and reconfiguring our economic thought around abundance instead as a central parameter requires rethinking economics so profoundly as to be a new philosophical position that is outside the field of economics. This economics is based on abundance, access, availability, yes-and collaborative willingness, and power shared with others. Network Economies of Abundance are measured in fulfillment; though actualization, connection, purpose, and meaning.

MSCI Inc., a provider of research-based indexes and analytics, has announced the launch of the Islamic M-Series Indexes, providing an additional Islamic index screening methodology that gives local investors the option to choose between the traditional approach of using total assets or the more widely used market cap-based methodology. The MSCI Islamic Index M-Series includes: MSCI ACWI Islamic M- Series Index, MSCI Europe Islamic M- Series Index, MSCI North America Islamic M- Series Index, MSCI Pacific Islamic M- Series Index, and MSCI EM Islamic M-Series Index. In June 2015, MSCI announced broader coverage of the Middle East equity universe with the launch of the MSCI Saudi Arabia Indexes and the MSCI GCC Countries International Indexes.

Indonesian Islamic banks would survive a rupiah drop to as low as 16,000 against the US dollar, thanks largely to low levels of bad loans, a senior official at Indonesia's Financial Services Authority said. The banking industry's non-performing financing ?? bad loans in sharia banks ?? reached 1.3 percent as of July 2015, still lower than the 5 percent benchmark set by the OJK. In comparison, bad loans among conventional lenders stood at 2.5 percent of total loans at the end of July, according to OJK data. The rupiah has fallen 15.13 percent so far this year, trading at 14,322 against the greenback on Monday, according to the Jakarta Interbank Offered Rate.

The decision to allow new licences came at a meeting of Qatar’s Supreme Council for Economic Affairs and Investment on 9 September. The council reviewed developments in both energy and investment before turning to the proposal by Qatar Central Bank (QCB) to grant licenses to open branches for GCC banks in Qatar. The council approved the proposal, with licenses set to be granted according to QCB requirements. Qatar currently licences 11 domestic banks and seven foreign banks. Among the foreign banks, Mashreq is the only GCC-based institution to have a Qatari banking licence. Bahrain’s Ithmaar Bank has a representative office in Qatar but not a full licence.