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Pakistan's Ministry of Finance selected Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank and Standard Chartered as bookrunners for a U.S. dollar sukuk issue. An official said; the tenor of the bond and the format would be decided soon

Dentons has advised Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (Malaysia) on an Islamic commodity murabahah facility of US$100 million to the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector. Qasim Aslam, Partner and the Head of Islamic Finance - Middle East, commented: "This marks another example of the significant efforts leading Japanese financial institutions are making to work together in making Islamic finance available across borders. We are very proud to have assisted BTMU on this landmark transaction." The Dentons team was led by Qasim Aslam and senior associate Tien Tai based in Dubai

Burkina Faso’s Coris Bank International (CBI) has decided to open a window dedicated to Islamic financing in the West African country in early 2014. According to the bank, this will be possible due to the support of the Islamic Corporation for the Development of private Sector (ICD), an affiliate of the Islamic development Bank (BID). The CBI would be the first Burkinabe bank to introduce Islamic banking. According to the bank, this would enable it to set up in parallel institutions for the provision of financial products to its customers on the basis of the Islamic regulations. There are plans to replicate this project in other countries where CBI is operating.

There are many reasons that Islamic financial products are popular outside the Muslim world. Britain became the first non-Muslim country to issue sukuk, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority made an issuance, and the governments of Luxembourg and South Africa will follow suit later this year. Last month Goldman Sachs issued an Islamic bond, and before the end of the year, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Société Générale, a French bank will probably do the same. All of these entities want to get a piece of the $2 trillion Islamic finance market.

Judith Rodin is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation. She is in charge of giving away one of America’s historic fortunes. But nowadays Rockefeller doesn’t mean quite what it once did. The foundation ranks only 16th in assets among U.S. charities. After a century of giving away money, only 4.1 billion US-Dollars are left of the once enormous fortune. No. 1 in the ranking for charity is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with 37.2 Billion US-Dollars. The latest pilot project is Smart Power that aims to electrify villages in India.

Sukuk, Islamic equivalent bonds, are beyond the boundaries of many portfolio managers of advanced economies. But in the Islamic finance world, it's the non-Islamic sukuk issuers that are non-conventional, and this is where Azzad Asset Management sees value. Ihab Salib, the lead portfolio manager for the firm's sukuk fund, the Azzad Wise Capital Fund (WISEX) said, "Currently we see value in some of the non-conventional issuers". "As maiden issuers in the market, they need to price the sukuk generously so as to tempt investors," he commented. South Africa's September issuance was a case in point.

The Holding Group has signed a strategic agreement with the Saudi Kuwaiti Finance House. The bank will act as a financial advisor for the group to arrange Islamic funding, in addition to executing residential, administrative, industrial, and commercial projects in Mekka, Medina, and Jeddah. The selection of the bank was based on financial and technical criteria. The group also operates hospitals, airports, and other private and public facilities.

Kourosh Parvizian, the governor of Sina Bank, welcomes the move of the British Treasury's to repeal of an asset freeze on the bank. It says that other European countries are expected to make the same decision, according to Iran's IRNA news agency.

Fitch Ratings has cautioned that the ratings of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) privately-owned corporates are being constrained by relatively weaker corporate governance than their developed market peers. The ratings agency said in a statement that this is mainly due to the absence of an effective independent board, weak transparency and limited disclosure practices and a move in this direction will still take time.

As Islamic bond issuance heads for a record year, nations making up the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council are losing share to new borrowers such as the U.K., Hong Kong and South Africa. Global sales of Shariah-compliant debt reached $36.7 billion. GCC market share fell down from more than 50 percent a year earlier as Bloomberg figures show. With non-Muslim countries being lured by the growing Islamic investor base.

Seattle-based Falah Capital is preparing to launch an Islamic exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks large U.S. stocks, the latest sharia-compliant product in a market. The ETF will be advised by Exchange Traded Concepts and Mellon Capital Management, with Bahrain-based Shariyah Review Bureau acting as sharia advisor, according to a filing with the SEC.

A bank has denied losing a businessman's title deeds. Gulf African says the documents were lost by its contracted courier – Data Rush Courier Services Ltd - in the course of delivery. Hashim Kher, the director of Al Heelam Holdings, sued the bank over the lost title deeds. Kher informed them that he wanted another bank to take over the debt. In a letter to the National Bank he seeked Sh65 million to facilitate the takeover of the debt from the bank.

MAYBANK Islamic Bhd hopes the government will introduce tax incentives for corporations, particularly to support the development of waqf and zakat. Potential growth in the two major sectors of Islamic endowments is given and they could benefit from tax breaks. The bank also hopes the government will continue its favourable policy on foreign currency transaction in Islamic banking, such as the International Currency Business Unit (ICBU) initiative which allows local players to conduct Islamic banking in international currencies via a division set up under the Islamic Banking Act 1983.

Bank Asya clients are battling help the Turkish lender against what they say is a government-orchestrated bid to scuttle it. Turkish social networking sites are full of customer’s notices to raise funds to “Save Bank Asya from sinking!” The Islamic lender has more than a million deposit-holding customers and 282 branches. President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an targeted it as part of his attacks on the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen. Erdo?an has long accused Gülen - now based in the United States - of seeking to overthrow him.

The Pakistani unit of Bahrain's Al Baraka Banking Group has raised 2 billion rupees ($19.5 million) via the country's first issuance of subordinated sukuk, or Islamic bonds. The seven-year private placement is the first to be issued by an Islamic bank in Pakistan, according to Abdullah Ghaffar, head of investment banking at Al Baraka Bank Pakistan.

Due to the phasing in of Basel III global banking standards around the globe, several Islamic banks have issued subordinated instruments in order to raise capital, including those in Turkey, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Islamic banking industry is hoping that the government will provide incentives to facilitate the development of the investment account (IA) in 2015. Bank Islam Bhd Managing Director Datuk Seri Zukri Samat said the industry would benefit from such incentives. Zukri also suggested that the government educate the people on Islamic finance as well as prosper the IFSA 2013.

The National Commercial Bank in Saudi Arabia, plans to raise 22.5 billion riyals ($6 billion) from the biggest initial public offering this year after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. It will sell 500 million shares at 45 riyals a piece. The sale is restricted to Saudi investors, with 300 million shares allocated to individuals and the rest to the kingdom’s Public Pension Agency. This makes the sale to the 2nd-biggest globally in 2014.

Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's new president has re-opened an inquiry about the theft of almost $1bn from the Kabul Bank, which had cause much turmoil and is said to be one of the largest banking failures in the word. Thereby he fulfils his campaign promise to fighting corruption as a priority and to combatting corruption comprehensively.
The bank's founder Sher Khan Fernod and the former chief executive, Haji Khalil Ferozi, were jailed for five years for taking $810m of the $935m.

National Bank of Fujairah (NBF) has launched NBF Islamic, a service offering clients a comprehensive suite of Sharia-compliant financial solutions. All NBF Islamic products are available across the UAE and there are plans to offer Islamic banking solutions to companies and businesses across the UAE. NBF Islamic will be guided by the Sharia Supervisory Board comprising four scholars, Dr. Mohammad Ali Elgari (Chairman), Dr. Mohd Daud Bakar, Dr. Muhammad Ameen Ali Qattan and Dr. Osama Al Dereai.

The transaction documents for the financing of the power project were signed over three days of meetings and included a ceremony in Rabat attended by Abdelilah Benkirane, prime minister of Morocco. Part of the financing was provided via a structured Islamic tranche from the Islamic Development Bank and it was not possible to use the more traditional procurement/forward lease structure typically seen in Islamic project financings. The Islamic tranche represents the first multi tranche cross border Islamic financing into Morocco and the first international Islamic project financing structured in this manner. Clifford Chance was delighted and proud to help create a new and innovative structure in Islamic project financing.