IslamicFinance.de

Salah Mohd I Al Jaidah is the new chairman of Asian Finance Bank (AFB). AFB stated that Salah had been instrumental in steering the growth and development of the finance house.

Islamic finance has boosted in the past few years and has the opportunity to become the largest segment in a number of banking systems in the Middle East by 2020 with a penetration rate in excess of 50 percent of the local banking assets.
In Malaysia and Bangladesh, for example, it could be become close to 50 %, based on a research by HSBC Amanah using historical compound annual rate of growth.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has accentuated upon the Islamic banks to mix their investment portfolios by enhancing financing to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), agriculture, housing finance and microfinance sectors of the economy.
The deputy governor stated with concern that the overall financing by Islamic banking industry in agriculture is still below three percent. Muhammad Kamran Shahzad added that in order to encourage the industry and to venture into participatory modes of financing, the central bank has formed a task force having representation of Islamic banks, business community, academia and accounting professionals to develop an incentive framework for promotion of such products.

Panel of international Islamic finance experts stated that Oman’s banking and finance sector can learn from other countries’ experiences in Islamic banking, which is a new field here.
Experts gave advice to local members of the finance industry at a seminar hosted by Deloitte at the Intercontinental Hotel. They underlined the fact that Oman can use existing models, thus develop the sector quickly.

London Central Portfolio has issued a sharia-compliant residential London property fund.
It seems that the fund will be adressed to some of the more wealthy clients, both domestic and overseas investors, who are looking to invest in property in the capital. The statement was given by Naomi Heaton, chief executive for LCP.

Most of the land backing a $1.03bn sukuk bond from Dubai property developer Nakheel is unreclaimed seabed, assigning trade creditors holding the paper with scant recourse to tangible assets in the event of a default.
The sukuk is part of Nakheel's $16bn debt restructuring deal which gives trade creditors 40 % in cash and 60 percent via the bond back.
The sukuk prospectus does not sketch out the assets assigned to support the sukuk but a term sheet distributed to creditors details the area.

The continuing expansion of the Saudi economy should confirm the steady growth of the insurance sector.
Despite this, the rise of compulsory health insurance remains miniscule.
Of the G20 economies, few have grown their insurance sectors in a way that could match that of Saudi Arabia between 2005 and 2010. Life premiums have climbed from SR193 million to SR1.40 billion. Also non-life premiums have risen from SR4.96 billion to SR16.872 billion.

Hussein Hassan is the former head of Islamic finance of Deutsche Bank. He moved to UBS in Dubai as Global Head of Islamic Finance. It seems that his place was taken by Ilker Guney, a managing director at the firm.

Fitch and Capital Intelligence have different oppinions regarding the diagnosis of Kuwait Finance House's financial strength.
CI rated KFH as BBB+ with a foreign currency long and short term rating of A+ and A1, while Fitch downgraded KFH to 'BB+' from 'BBB-'.
Fitch stated that it would analyze its rating again if it saw evidence of a significant improvement in asset quality, as well as improved capitalization given the large financing portfolio sector concentrations.

The government of Gabon wants to change its financial laws to allow Islamic finance, in order to bring together Shari'ah compliant FDI as part of the economic reforms it is currently implementing.
As part of the planned reforms in the financial law, the country recently held a conference to find out how Islamic finance can gain consciousness across the Economic Community of Central African States (CEMAC).

Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is enthusiastic to evolve Waqf properties in India and the two sides have investigated ways to cooperate in different fields including launching of Islamic banking in the country.
It seems that the bank has agreed to finance not only Waqf properties in India but also to develop seven Rubaats (Haj shelters) in Makkah for pilgrims' accommodation.

AK BARS Bank sealed the debut in CIS one-year syndicated Murabaha financing for the total amount of $60 million. Citi and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) were the exclusive Joint Lead Arrangers and Bookrunners.
AK BARS Murabaha facility is the first international facility compliant with Shari’ah requirements organized for a Russian financial institution and follows on from the Islamic finance initiative announced by Tatarstan Republic earlier this year.

Amana Takaful will launch 800,000 shares in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Maldives Stock Exchange (MSE).
It appears that 20 % of the shares will be made available to expatriates and 15 percent to overseas applicants. The rest of 65 % will be offered to Maldivians.
The IPO was announced at the Nasandhura Palace Hotel. Hareez Sulaiman, CEO of Amana Takaful Maldives, stated that the IPO is going to "change the way the Maldivian Stock Exchange operates as this will be the first time that Maldivians, expatriates and foreigners will be able to purchase securities in a Maldivian listed company.”

Yum Brands edges investors’ appetite with Rmb350 million dim sum bond, while Nissan Motors and Khazanah affiliate.
It seems that Hong Kong’s dim sum bond market continues to captivate a growing universe of borrowers, the latest addition being Yum Brands.
Moreover, Nissan Motors starts investor meetings for a potential dim sum bond. HSBC and Standard Chartered are organizing the meetings and a deal is expected this week. Nissan is rated BBB+ (stable) by S&P.

Barclays Bank has gained approval to perform an Islamic Window in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), authorizing it to base its global Islamic products team in the DIFC, and to offer Islamic financial products and services from there.
This licence endorsement was given by Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and it offers the posibilty to expand.

Saudi Arabia is now the 11th most competitive economy in the world.
Macroeconomic policy in the Kingdom has successfully planed out stability and sustainability. A notably attractive opportunity for Saudi Arabia consists in the area of fostering entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, the room for growth in terms of support structures and funding is enormous.
A comparison of the situation in Saudi Arabia with that of mature Western economies underlines the potential that releasing this entrepreneurial talent can have for Saudi Arabia's economic growth and job creation.

The Second Annual Islamic Finance Forum will gather investors, borrowers and regulators in the same place to accomplish a better understanding of existing instruments of Islamic Finance and to find answers to problems encountered frequently in the course of doing business.
The forum delegates is amde of representatives from the Embassies of UAE, Malaysia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and other countries.

TENAGA NASIONAL BHD. (TNB), MIDCITI RESOURCES SDN Bhd., Indonesia, SAUDI ARAMCO TOTAL REFINING & PETROCHEMICAL CO., PALESTINE MONETARY AUTHORITY, AL HILAL BANK, KUALA LUMPUR KEPONG BHD. (KLK) , EMERY OLEOCHEMICALS GROUP, PT BANK MUAMALAT INDONESIA, PT BANK SYARIAH BRI, TOURISM DEVELOPMENT & INVESTMENT CO. and many others are expected to sell Islamic bonds, which consume asset returns to pay investors to accede with the religion’s ban on interest.

Oasis Group Holdings is the developer of Shariah-compliant asset management, retirement and investment fund products in South Africa since it launched its first Islamic fund in August 1998, the Oasis Crescent Global Equity Fund.
In the last few years, the group has taken a chance abroad and now aspires to build the first global Shariah-investment fund brand, complete with a global distribution capability and a global asset management capacity.
It also seems that it is in the process of opening an office in London to spearhead its operations in the UK and EU market, which as a Muslim population of 2.8 million and 12 million respectively.

It seems that Khazanah Nasional Bhd. hired BOC International, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd and Royal Bank for a sale of the world's first yuan-denominated Islamic bonds in Hong Kong.
The offering will help Malaysia maintain its strengt and position as the world's biggest launcher of sukuk.