IslamicFinance.de

Western Union and Saudi lender Bank Albilad have signed an agreement to launch Western Union's Account-Based Money Transfer (ABMT) service in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

World Bank has published a new book concerning Takaful and Mutual Insurance. The book shall increase the understanding, appreciation, and discussion of the challenges and solutions which concern development and implementation of takaful.

Sharia banking soars in several countries including Indonesia with 191 operating sharia banks. Between 2007 and 2011, the sharia banking sector has achieved an average growth-rate of 40.2 percent per annum. Even thought the potential of sharia banking is big, the conventional banking system still plays an important role in banking system which cannot be overseen.

The State of Kuwait belongs to the three largest trading partner of the United Kingdom in the Gulf region with a trade exchange between of about 3.59 billion U.S. dollars. In order to strengthen bilateral relations, the Amir of Kuwait has made a visit to the UK at the invitation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

KPMG and ACCA report underlines the necessity of the harmonization of the financial reporting and tighter cooperation of Islamic banks with the International Accounting Standards Board in order to develop guidance, standards and educate the investor community on key issues.

Kuwait Finance House has informed its shareholders about the planned raising of the share capital by 20 pct . This move should help KFH to maintain stable ratings, improve capital ratios and boost fund expansion.

Impact investments, also known as responsible or ethical investing , are investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate measurable social and environmental impact, e.g. in the sector of education, health services or financial services. Compared to the general meaning of impact investing, in Islamic countries, it focuses primarily on excluding "sin" businesses rather than on positive impact on particular philanthropic entities.

GCC became the leader of global sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as the value of their 13 managed funds reached $1.8 trillion. They follow the strategy of diversification across a wide range of industries and asset classes. Although the global financial crisis has slowed down the pace of GCC SWF investments, GCC countries are still on the course of investing outside the region and thus play an important role in the global investment landscape.

Syndicated lending by Saudi Arabian banks has increased by almost twice in 2012, according to Bloomberg. On the contrary, syndicated lending has slowed overall in the Middle East and North Africa as it fell by 5 percent this year registering its first decline since 2009. The Shariah-compliant bond market is mostly driven by privately held companies in Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, as they keen to access the public debt markets and thus earn higher yields.

A RM500mil (US$163mil) Islamic bond has been issued by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. The issued sukuk has an interest rate of 4.75% and will mature in 15 years. The joint lead managers of the transaction besides the Malaysian national bank were HSBC, Maybank Investment Bank and Standard Chartered.

On 27 November 2012, the International Shariah Research Academy will host its 2nd colloquium, which is part of initiative to provide a venue for young scholars in Islamic finance. The main topic of the colloquium shall be: Moving Forward reflects the challenges to be addressed as well as tasks to be accomplished by Islamic finance in the next stage of its development. Among the participants will be the Honorable Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia.

Director, Retail, Private & Islamic Banking

Our client is a Middle Eastern bank seeking to grow their base in the UK/Europe. The main office is based in the West End of London and they have multiple offices located throughout the GCC. First class opportunity for an Arabic speaker
Experience of Retail, Private and Commercial (SME) Banking within an Islamic Finance framework is key.

26.11.2012: eFC Ref Nr 1130266

The Senior FSD Specialist will primarily be responsible for:

Leading the Bank’s financial inclusion work in Indonesia, including through the design, delivery, implementation and monitoring of existing and prospective financial inclusion projects (lending, economic and sector work, technical assistance), including in areas such as microfinance, access to finance for MSMEs and women, micro-insurance, financial literacy and consumer protection, international migration and remittances; Islamic financing.

The Legal & Compliance Department of JP Morgan Chase & Co (JPM). seeks an attorney in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ("KSA") to support its franchise across the Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB) businesses, including Global Corporate Bank (GCB), Global Investment Bank (IB) and Treasury Services (TS). The Legal & Compliance Department of JP Morgan Chase & Co. comprises over 500 lawyers globally.

The attorney will be based in JPM Riyadh branch and support JPM's KSA senior management. The attorney will partner and work closely with teams across the CIB including GCB, IB and TS business lines to achieve strategic objectives in growing the ***conventional and Islamic*** businesses in KSA and globally.

The goal of the Global Strategic Framework (GSF) for food security and nutrition, which was endorsed by the FAO Committee on Food Security (CFS), is to make improvements to coordination and to guide synchronized action by a wide range of stakeholders. This way, global, regional and country-led actions aimed at the prevention of future food crises, elimination of hunger and ensuring food security and nutrition for all people are supported. The GSF is designed in such a way that the document allows dynamic updates by the CFS Plenary based on regular CFS processes and policy debates.

It is expected by early next year that the Islamic corporate social responsibility (i-CSR) General Practice framework will be ready for adoption by Islamic financial institutions. The framework has been developed by the Accounting Research Institute (ARI) of Universiti Teknologi Mara. It is now almost completed. ARI researchers at the UITM-ACCA Asia-Pacific Centre of Sustainability (APCeS) worked in collaboration with Universiti Sains Malaysia, and Indonesia's Sebelas Maret University and Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. According to Professor Dr. Normah Omar - director of ARI - Shariah players including local Ulama (Islamic scholars) will be engaged by the institute in order to firm up a couple of details on the framework in a two-day workshop beginning on November 29th.

GFH Capital is a private equity firm based in Dubai, UAE. According to its website, the company has been highly successful investments and fund management over the past ten years. It also points out that it has handled investments worth more than eight billion US dollars in 25 different countries. Its funds to some extent come from the Dubai Islamic Bank, the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank. The Gulf Finance House is an investment bank Bahrain. It completely owns GFH Capital Limited. Just as GFH Capital, the Gulf Finance House has made numerous successful investments worth billions of American dollars. GFH Capital has made its bid for Leeds United on its own and will handle the deal independently of Gulf Finance House.

According to a statement of Al Izz Islamic Bank, they have elected members of the board. The elections have taken place a month after the initial public offer of the bank's shares. The chairman, who is to lead a board of six members, is Taimur Bin As'ad Al Said. Last month, the bank sold 40% of its capital through a month-long IPO and thus managed to raise 40 million rials ($104 million). Moreover, Al Izz will list on the Muscat Securities Market on December 3rd.

D. Subbarao, governer of RBI, explains that because of legal issues, Islamic banking will not be possible in Kerala. This is the only state in the country which has been striving for introduction of Islamic banking. RBI has already addressed Indian government on the matter pointing out the necessary amendments. Subbarao further suggests that the restriction on Islamic banking could have a work-around through other models instead of banking. These have been proposed to the government of Kerala.

According to the chairman of Boubyan Bank, Islamic banking in Kuwait is growing double as fast as conventional banking. Throughout the Arab region, the demand is expected to be strong. In the first nine months of this year, credit volumes at Islamic banks in the kingdom reached KD11.1 billion ($39.3 billion). This is an increase of 13.2% compared to the same period in 2011. Meanwhile, conventional banks were able to register credit growth of 5.6% reaching KD18.6 billion. This is the reason why Boubyan has no interest in in overseas expansion yet.