IslamicFinance.de

UK Muslims will get access to financial products that are in line with Islamic Shari'ah rules, as day want to know what drives the returns they are receiving. A new service, called Ummah Financial Planning, has been recently launched by Garbutt & Elliott and should help around two to three million Muslims in the UK to manage their finances.

Redefinition of the banking landscape, especially with regards to the community and environment, will be the main topic of the 2012 Festival of Spirituality and Peace. Top-quality speakers will discuss on how to reestablish the connection between the money economy, local needs and productive activity in order to find new balance.

In July 2007 Bank of London and The Middle East ("BLME") celebrated its fifth anniversary of receiving FSA authorisation. Throughout these years BLME has successfully constituted and developed its business platform, providing various wholesale banking and wealth management services. Humphrey Percy, CEO of BLME, said that despite the challenges in the global economical turmoil, BLME had achieved key successes in the growth of their Wealth Management business and Corporate Banking divisions. BLME’s success is due to reliance upon traditional banking values of trust, fairness and integrity. Thus it provides clients with ethical corporate banking, treasury and wealth management services across Europe and the GCC.

According to a Discussion Paper by the Stresemann foundation, which in turn is sponsored by
Daniel Pipes and his Middle East Forum, Islamic finance has so far been largely unsuccessful, it is claimed.

Further it is outlined that the comparison with other European countries should suggest that this is not due to the specific legal framework of the country but to other reasons: First, Muslim immigrants have lower than average incomes, because of lacking formal education and low labour participation rates of Muslim women . Thus, their investment potential for financial products is rather marginal and focused on real estate in Turkey. Second, the system of Shariah scholars causes some trouble due to insufficient economic knowledge and conflicting legal opinions opines the author.

The Islamic Bank of Britain will bring about a savings account with a rarely high rate - 4%. The new account has a fixed rate for two years. The deposited money will be used to support Sharia-compliant and ethical trading companies.

Bahrain based Tadhamon Capital B.S.C. and London based Apache Capital Partners, both investment companies, have completed the acquisition of Central London student accommodation development - Paris Gardens. The development itself was planned to be finished in September 2013. The property in the London Borough of Southwark will provide student accommodation of 253 beds.

The world’s third-largest asset-management company - Franklin Templeton Investments is starting its first Islamic funds. Following the steps of companies like BNP Paribas, Templeton will start three sukuk and stock investment vehicles in Luxembourg in the next couple of months. Thus, they aim to win business in the Muslim world.

Additional costs for issuing an Islamic bond no longer have to be paid - the "sukuk premium" is gone. As a senior executive at Deutsche Bank explained, this will result in a hige increase in sukuk issuance. At the same time, tenors will become longer. Until last year, the reasons of common premium payment were that issuers catered to a smaller investor base. Also, in comparison with conventional bonds, investors were little familiar with sukuk structurs. This is now not the case any more since a heavy investor demand for sukuk this year can be observed.

The Islamic Bank of Britain offers a two-year fixed account with an expected profit rate of 4pc. People of any faith can take advantage of this table-topping offer. Since the bank's investments go to Sharia compliant and ethical trading activities, the 4pc are not paid as interest but offered as an 'expected profit rate'. This account rate os only available from July 21 until August 19.

Jebel Ali Free Zone FZE wants to raise a mix $1.85 billion from a bank facility and the sale of Islamic bonds to help refinance its 7.5 billion-dirham ($2 billion) debt maturing in November.
It appears that the company authorized Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC, Citigroup Inc., Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC, Emirates NBD PJSC, National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC and Standard Chartered Plc to prepare investor meetings in Asia, Europe and the Middle East from June 5 ahead of a possible sukuk sale.

Sidra Capital (Sidra) and Gatehouse Bank (Gatehouse) finalized their second real estate acquisition in the United Kingdom Real Estate Fund (SURF) for GBP 22.4million.
The fund will deliver a diverse real estate portfolio in the UK, providing Saudi Arabian investors access to one of the world's most transparent and well-regulated markets.
The SURF fund has the purpose to hand over an average annual distribution yield of 7.00%.

Aproximatly 100 investment projects worth 300 billion roubles have been introduced at the 4th International Summit in Kazan.
The organizers of the forum were the government of Tatarstan, the Islamic Business & Finance Development Foundation (IBFD) with the support of the Federation Council of Russia.
The summit is attended by thousands of guests from over 30 countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation including: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Turkey, the UAE, Oman, Pakistan.

La Zakat et les Banques
Ecole de Management Strasbourg
26 mai 2012
Dans le cadre du programme de recherche « Banques
et Finance Islamique » soutenu par l’Agence Nationale
de la recherche, un colloque « La Zakat et les
banques » est organisé le 26 mai 2012 à l’Ecole de
Management Strasbourg.
L'implantation annoncée de diverses institutions
financières islamiques en France, ainsi que la volonté
affichée de banques françaises de développer cette
finance, se heurteront assurément à certaines
difficultés qui trouvent leur source dans l'intégration
en droit français d'obligations de droit musulman telle
que la Zakat. Outre une présentation du régime de la
Zakat, l'objectif retenu est de s'intéresser à l'insertion
de la finance islamique et de la Zakat en France, et de
tenter d'apporter des réponses aux questions qu'elle
ne manquerait pas de soulever.

The first home purchase plan approved by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for the mainstream UK market is the genie out of a modern day bottle. It shows that the religious principles underlying Islamic products are important in the ethical and social finance marketplace and that Islamic principles can stimulate and improve the finance products being expanded to meet these challenging times in the residential domestic market.
Natalie Elphicke, head of structured housing finance, partner, international law firm Stephenson Harwood, states that the following characteristics apply equally to an approved Islamic home finance plan as they do to a new conventional purchase plan designed for a housing association in the north east of England: risk sharing, not profiting unjustly or unfairly, not charging excessive charges.

Trevor Norman, director of Jersey-based fiduciary specialist Volaw Trust and Corporate Services, noted that UK investors and their advisers should be given permission to research products themselves instead of having to obtain a fatwa, or judgement, from a Sharia board.
Mahmood Faruqui, senior adviser for the Bank of London and the Middle East and former vice-chairman of the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance, added that another problem with the current system was the lack of transparency from the Sharia board in providing its judgements.

Bank of London and The Middle East plc (BLME) signed a £14 million leasing deal with Global Marine Systems Ltd.
According to the agreement, BLME will support Global Marine in the acquisition and refit of an offshore power cable installation barge. The barge will be uniquely suited for the installation of a full range of subsea power cables. The increased request for this type of cable installation barge is directly connected to the growth of offshore electricity transmission being constructed to link the off-shore wind farms now being built throughout the North Sea and surrounding waters.

The International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM) and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) are pleased to announce the launch of the ISDA/IIFM Mubadalatul Arbaah (Profit Rate Swap) product standard to be used for Islamic hedging purposes.

The Mubadalatul Arbaah (MA) standard follows on from the “ISDA/IIFM Tahawwut (Hedging) Master Agreement” and provides the industry with a framework for Islamic risk mitigation. The launch of the Tahawwut Master Agreement as the template for Shari’ah-compliant risk management was officially announced at a press conference hosted by Central Bank of Bahrain in March 2010.

Simmons & Simmons has hired another partner from Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) in London. John Kelsey,recruitment of real estate specialist, took the number of partners the firm has hired from BLP to seven in less than a year. The hire follows the adding of six partners from BLP to its London office last year.
Also in the real estate space, Mayer Brown has switsched to rebuild its property practice with the hire of a partner from CMS Cameron McKenna. Chris Harvey, a salaried or gateway partner in CMS' London real estate group, will oversee Mayer Brown's City real estate investment team.

Potential for marketing Islamic funds cross-border in the Asia-Pacific and Asean is starting to be seen through the UCITS (undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities) platform. Despite the fact that it has already been used in Europe, it's the first time that it's being used in this region.
On January 16 2012 Kuala Lumpur-based CIMB declared the launch of three Islamic UCITS funds designed for cross-border distribution in Asia.
These funds will be registered and allocated in seven jurisdictions including the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

Despite the fact that Islamic finance has existed in Europe for more than forty years, in Italy results of the first experiments are only now starting to be seen.
In 2009, for example, Deloitte set up a sector dedicated to Islamic finance. Alberto Liotta, a director at the consultancy firm, stated that the main focus are conventional financing instruments, such as leasing.