IslamicFinance.de

The attenders at the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) will be, among others, central bank governors, representatives from Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Bahrain, and many international finance and economic experts.
The host of the conference will be the Central Bank of Luxembourg and the theme is "Enhancing Global Financial Stability. Challenges and Opportunities for Islamic Finance".

Norton Rose (Middle East) LLP has advised Citibank as arranger in relation to a US$300,000,000 dual tranche Murabaha syndicated facility for Turkiye Finans Kat?l?m Bankas? A.S., an Islamic bank in Turkey 60% owned by the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia. It is the largest Islamic syndication in Turkey to date.
The initial transaction size was increased to US$300,000,000 due to high interest from banks in Europe, Middle East and Asia.

Alberto Brugnoni, ASSAIF, will moderate the Session on 'Finance and philanthropy' at the “4th World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists - Defining the Roadmap for the Next Decade” that will convene at the Shangri-La Hotel in Dubai on March 23-24, 2011

Muslim Philanthropy is at a crossroad, challenged to build new models of giving while simultaneously refining old methods embedded in vibrant Islamic tradition. The foremost challenge in the field is to promote strategic and accountable philanthropy that complements and enhances the generations-old conventional charity, which is often personal and spontaneous

The Session will examine within a common framework the failure of zakat to achieve most of its socio-economic objectives, the stagnation of waqf institutions in performing their designated social functions and the growing divergence between the aspirations of Islamic economics and the realities of the Islamic finance industry. It will also offer actionable programme plans for zakat and innovative ways of using the institution of waqf to establish social enterprises, as possible common solutions

Kazakhstan will revisit a plan this year to issue debut sovereign Islamic bonds worth U.S.$500 million.
It will create a benchmark for corporate lenders because its aim is to build an Islamic finance sector among its majority Muslim population.
Central Asia's largest economy also plans to attract up to US$10 billion in Islamic finance in the next five to seven years, officials said yesterday, as a alternative means of financing an ambitious industrial growth programme.

EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ISLAMIC ECONOMICS AND FINANCE

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AND INCLUSIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FROM AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

Doha, Qatar - December 25-27, 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

The global economy continues to face the perennial problems of poverty, persistent youth unemployment, excessive inequalities of income and wealth, high levels of inflation, large macroeconomic and budgetary imbalances, exorbitant debt-servicing burdens, inadequate and aging public utilities and infrastructure, skyrocketing energy prices, and growing food insecurity. The reoccurring regional and global financial crises further intensify and magnify these problems particularly for the underprivileged segments of the world population. As a result, many countries are at the risk of failing to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations. However, some countries also present optimistic experiences to share, and from which useful lessons can be drawn for shaping the future economic scene in other countries.

The annual convening of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, widely recognized as the premier forum on Muslim Philanthropy worldwide, welcomes social investors, grant-makers, government and business leaders, visionaries, and civil society executives to a solicitation-free collaborative environment.

The 4th World Congress will initiate a dialogue around the potential roadmap for Muslim Giving in the next decade. This discussion will be enriched by the collective wisdom and experience of leading philanthropists and intellectuals from around the world. The forum will also examine challenges unique to Muslim societies, and offer options for managing them.

Update 17th Feb 2011:

The organizers of the 4th World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists regret to announce the change of meeting venue due to circumstances beyond their control. This unpredicted situation came about in response to the directives we received today from the Moroccan authorities. While we feel extremely disappointed, we believe it is prudent that we do not compromise on the safety of our guests.

Call For Submission

Kuwait Finance House is looking for real estate investments in southern China and Europe.
Its real estate arm has investments primarily in key US cities, Malaysia, Shenzhen in China, and the Middle East.
Al-Ghannam said the company would prefer to invest in existing projects with local partners, rather than going into residential construction.

Dear Reader,

Many times I read, and on all conferences we debate on the issue of form over substance - is their a simple solution?

Let's revisit:

Form over substance means that contemporary Islamic finance takes more emphasize on the form of the contracts (in their Arabic terminology like Murabaha, Musharaka etc.) as in their substance, especially their economic substance, which often looks the same after conducting a sequence of Arabic named contracts.

Scholars have to judge the appearance of the form, meaning the contracts in front of them. A judge shall not guess the intentions of the contractual parties but typically has to rely on the text itself to come a decision. Different schools of Islamic law have different degrees on reliance on the form and considering or rejecting to assume 'intentions' . The hesitance to guess about 'intentions' is based on the fear to commit injustice to the parties and a procedural cause to get evidence about them.

THE Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank will be preoccupied with two developments in 2011 apart from its established plan of action. This is the progress toward the launch of its mega bank project and the other is the continuation of its trust certificate (sukuk) program.
The mega bank project was promoted by Saleh Kamel, head of Dallah Albaraka Group, who has been trying to get it launched for the last few years. But his failure to get the project started off through the support of both government and private investors saw the project somehow passed on to the IDB. The plan is to launch a mega bank that will effectively be an Islamic Interbank bank, with the aim of providing short-term liquidity to the global Islamic banking market and of promoting the trading of sukuk in the secondary market by acting as a market maker.
CIMB of Malaysia, Citigroup, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank acted as joint lead managers and joint book-runners, and NCB Capital of Saudi Arabia acted as co-lead manager for this transaction. The success of IDB's transaction was underpinned by a comprehensive international road show covering Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Through its member organization Islamic Corporation for Development of the Private Sector (ICD), the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has started replicating the schemes tested in co-operation with Azerbaijan.
The IDB reports that ICD general manager Khaled Al-Aboodi and chairman of the State Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs of Turkmenistan Ragimberdi Jepbarov signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on development co-operation.
The Memo has a focus on the development of the private sector, especially small- and medium-size enterprises, financial sector, agriculture, logistics, construction of affordable housing, services and manufacturing industries. The IDB will also render technical assistance and consultations within the framework of Islamic financing.

Until recently the issuance of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, was confined to the Muslim world. But now a number of international borrowers are tapping the markets, including Nomura Holdings in Japan and Europe's first corporate borrower, International Innovative Technologies.
The ratings agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s say they expect to see a rise in the number of sukuk issues by new players over the next 12 months, including issues by borrowers in Singapore, Australia, Luxembourg, Thailand, Hong Kong, France and Russia.
While the Islamic Financial Service Board and the accounting and auditing organization have defined standards for sukuk, defaults over the past year have shown that new guidelines must be set as problems arise, particularly as sukuk start to generate global attention.

Elaf Bank, a closely held Islamic investment bank in Bahrain, has applied for a banking license in Malaysia.
The Southeast Asian nation plans to issue two more Islamic bank licenses, including one of a new lender that will be jointly established by institutions from Asia and the Middle East.
Bank Negara Malaysia already issued conventional licenses to five foreign banks in June, including National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Indonesia’s PT Bank Mandiri.
The bank would use Malaysia as regional hub, covering Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.
It would try to use this as an opportunity to converge differing interpretations of Islamic finance between Malaysia and the Middle East by getting Shariah boards to work closely.

The plan to create national Shariah boards to oversee sukuk sales is drawing criticism from bankers and lawyers who say the groups would increase bureaucracy in the $1 trillion Islamic finance industry.
The Accounting & Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, a leading global regulator, is in the final stages of a plan recommending governments appoint panels of scholars and experts at the national level to rule whether products comply with the religion’s tenets, Mohamad Nedal Alchaar, secretary-general of the Manama, Bahrain-based body, said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 26. The proposal will be submitted early next year.
The regulator says such a system will help clarify standards and bolster investor confidence in an industry whose assets are forecast by the Kuala Lumpur-based Islamic Financial Services Board to almost triple to $2.8 trillion by 2015. The changes risk adding bureaucratic hurdles and slowing approvals at a time when sales are down 19 percent this year, according to CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management Sdn. and Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding LLP.

HEWLETT-PACKARD (HP), the world's largest technology company, has issued its maiden US$100 million (RM310 million) sukuk to part- finance the development and construction of its multi-million-dollar next generation data centre (NGDC) in Cyberjaya.
The company, via its Malaysian subsidiary HP Multimedia Sdn Bhd, and CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd signed an agreement to formalise the Islamic term financing facility agreement in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
At the signing, CIMB Islamic was represented by group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, while HP was represented by HP Enterprise Services senior vice president for Asia Pacific and Japan, Kevin Jones.
The loan will help finance the development of HP's first phase NGDC project, with an option to be extended to subsequent phases in due course.
Upon completion in 2016, the campus will stand as one of HP's four global network centres, alongside India, Mexico and Costa Rica.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, or ADIB, the emirate’s largest Islamic lender by market value, is planning to sell five-year benchmark Islamic bonds, or sukuks, this week, according to people familiar with the matter.
Company officials, who have been on a series of investor meetings in Asia, Europe and the Middle East since Oct. 20, end their roadshow Tuesday. Benchmark-sized bond deals are those worth at least $500 million. The securities are expected to price later this week.

HSBC Amanah, the Islamic banking window of banking giant HSBC, is planning to launch its Islamic banking services in full scale in Bangladesh, a visiting top official of HSBC said Tuesday.
With the re-launch, HSBC Amanah in Bangladesh will be the largest presence in South East Asia, the deputy CEO said. Currently HSBC Amanah is operating in the UK, Malaysia, Middle East countries, Indonesia and other countries.
HSBC Amanah products are rigorously audited and approved by HSBC central Shariah committee.

Australia plans to change laws to ensure Islamic finance products are taxed fairly as the government seeks to attract investors from the Middle East and Asia, paving the way for sukuk sales.
The national taxation board will hold talks next month in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne on how to best ensure that Islamic finance transactions are treated the same as equivalent non-Islamic deals. The board noted this month that mortgages that comply with religious principles may lead to stamp duty being paid twice, as the financier buys the property and then sells it to his client. Under a conventional mortgage there is only one sale that attracts the duty.
Australia is looking to join countries from Egypt to South Korea in seeking to ease barriers to Shariah- compliant products and tap the industry’s $1 trillion in assets, which the Kuala Lumpur-based Islamic Financial Services Board predicts will reach $1.6 trillion by 2012.

The growing demand for securities that meet Islamic religious principles may lead Canadian governments and companies to start issuing Shariah bonds.
HSBC Bank Canada may offer $500 million and three government-related borrowers from one Canadian province may issue $1.5 billion of sukuk, Omar Kalair, chief executive officer of Toronto-based UM Financial, said in an Oct. 14 interview. A “handful” of Canadian companies may sell C$1 billion ($980 million) of Islamic debt by 2013, said Daud Vicary Abdullah, global Islamic finance leader at Deloitte Corporate Advisory Services Sdn. in Kuala Lumpur.
Egypt, Nigeria, the Philippines and Thailand have announced plans to sell their first sukuk in the past three months, partly to tap Persian Gulf oil wealth.

The report pointed out that Kuwait ranked first among the GCC countries in terms Islamic banks assets to total banking assets, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE have risen among the countries that promote Islamic finance products and services. It added that there are many opportunities still available for Islamic finance solutions in the region where real estate finance tops other areas of interest prevalent in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The existence of financial centers in Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE, as well as a number of Islamic finance organizations such as the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, Liquidity Management Centre, and the International Islamic Financial Market will continue to attract new players to the region and further propel the Islamic banking industry to greater heights.

With high net worth individuals (HNWIs) in the GCC are seen as the most active in management their wealth during later life, over 90 percent reject the idea of getting retire, according to Barclays Wealth latest Insights report.
The report titled The Age Illusion: How the Wealthy are Redefining Their Retirement is the twelfth in the Barclays Wealth Insights series, shows that HNWIs in Saudi Arabia (92 percent), United Arab Emirates (91 percent) and Qatar (89 percent) illustrated the biggest desire amongst global respondents to keep working in later life. According to the findings of the report the retirement is being rejected by a new breed of wealthy worker, who want to carry on working for as long as they are able.