IslamicFinance.de

he Islamic finance industry is estimated to grow at 15-20 per cent per year. 63 per cent of Islamic finance institutions are positioned in the Middle East, controlling more than 50 per cent of Islamic banking assets. These Statistics were concluded at the first ever Oman Islamic Banking Conference.
The gathering included speakers from prominent Islamic financial institutions around the region and high-level delegates from Omani financial institutions and banks that debated regional best practices and map out a strategy for the nation to become a part of the rapidly growing Islamic finance industry.

Noor Islamic Bank had a net operating profit of AED 207 million for the first six months of 2011, on a revenue base of AED 386 million. Net profit for the period ending June 30th was AED 85 million.
Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum stated that their performance resulted from the strategic initiatives and business model realignment that we have been undertaking within the bank over the past 18 months.

Because of the need to hedge against an increase in U.S. treasury yields and the fact that investors shift toward shorter maturities, Dubai's Islamic bond due 2014 could provide better returns than its 2020 security.
The yield gap between the Dubai government's 6.396% sukuk, due 2014 and its 7.75% security due 2020 widened 11 basis points this month, led by a drop in yields on the shorter-dated notes. The statement came from Bloomberg.

At the 36th annual board of governors meeting held in Jeddah last month, there was one positive result that stood out: the approval by the Board of Directors of the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Export Credit and Investment (ICIEC), the standalone export credit and political risk insurance agency of the IDB Group, of the corporation's capital from the current $240 million to $640 million.
ICIEC had an obvious gain: the capital increase would substantially increase its underwriting and reinsurance capacity.
It was confirmed by Abdel Rahman Taha, CEO, that ICIEC is still reviewing the feasibility of launching the LC Guarantee Fund, and are in discussions with some partner institutions on the structure and objectives of the fund.

PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia stated that it will offer $50 million of dollar-denominated Shariah-compliant bonds in the fourth quarter of this year.
The bank also wants to raise funds by selling $800 billion rupiah of subordinated debt next year to boost capital.

1. Operational profit generated during the six months period summed up to SAR 645.3 million, compared to SAR 927.2 million for the same period last year, a decrease of 30.4%.
2. Earnings per share for the first six months was SAR 0.53 compared to SAR 0.77 for the same period of 2010.
3. The gross profit generated during the six months period was SAR 704.4 million, compared to SAR 1,009.3 million for the same period last year, a decrease of 30.2%.
4. The gross profit generated during the second quarter amounted to SAR 337.7 million, compared to SAR 530.9 million for the same period last year, a decrease of 36.4%.
5. The net income generated during the six months period amounted to SAR 570.9 million, compared to SAR 835.6 million for the same period last year, a decrease of 31.7%.
6. Operational profit generated during the second quarter amounted to SAR 305.7 million, compared to SAR 492 million for the same period last year, a decrease of 37.9%.
7. The net income generated during the second quarter reached SAR 297.8 million.

At the recent International Takaful Summit 2011 the experts from Takaful stated that they expect to reach $12 billion by the end of this year.
Ernst & Young think that emerging markets will be the key actors leading Takaful’s growth.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Malaysia are currently the top three Takaful markets. They are followed by c, Bangladesh, Sudan, and Pakistan.

A licence for the bank to create Asia's first multinational Islamic bank will awarded in the third quarter. This has the possibility to increase the ability of syariah-compliant lenders to carry out larger sukuk deals, after global sales more than doubled to US$14.7bil this year.
Five Pillars, an Islamic finance advisory firmfrom Singapore revealed its oppinion that it thinks that the amount may grow to about US$10bil in six to 10 years.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) had a 26.9 percent jump in second-quarter net profit, beating analysts' forecasts on a surge in the bank's investment income.
Analysts questioned by Reuters on average expected a quarterly net profit of 347.36 million riyals.

Central bankers from Malaysia, Indonesia have met in Jakarta on 18 July 2011 and discussed the need to improve cooperation in order to boost the development of Islamic finance in the two countries.
Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz of Bank Negara Malaysia and Governor Darmin Nasution of Bank Indonesia agreed on the need for joint initiatives to create an ‘enabling environment’.

Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) has closed its second short term Sukuk. It attracted more than SAR 3 billion ($799.9 million) of orders for a SAR 1 billion ($266.6 million) issuance.
The privately placed Sukuk was offered to Saudi sophisticated investors and launched through SBG Sukuk Co.

Ernst & Young's experts stated at the International Takaful Summit 2011 in London that Takaful is only one per cent of total global insurance market but Muslims are 20 per cent of the world's population.
Abid Shakeel is the one that spoke at on 'Takaful - the default option for Muslim countries' at the summit. He underlined the fact that the legislation in the Islamic countries that makes Takaful products the preferred choice among insurance products can place the industry on a completely different level. He added the fact that growth in the GCC is primarily driven by compulsory insurance rather than only voluntary policies.

Tabreed stated that it fully repaid a 200 million US dollar Islamic bond. It seems that the total amount paid to certificate holders of the bond was 735 million UAE dirhams.
Dubai-listed Tabreed is one of the many Gulf companies which has to restructure its debt after an economic boom, fuelled by record-high oil prices and easy credit, ended abruptly and caused a property market crash.

Before engaging in any financial project there should be taken into consideration two very important factors: Corporate Social Responsibility and protecting the environment.
Dr. Mustafa Al Sayyed is the one that underlined this in an economic session. He added that all stakeholders should work collectively to ensure that the above factors are considered.

Clifford Chance advises on largest dual-tranche global sovereign US dollar sukuk
International law firm Clifford Chance has given advice to CIMB, Citi, HSBC and Maybank as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners on the US$2 billion dual-tranche sukukal- wakala transaction for the Government of Malaysia.
The sukuk certificates have been assigned a rating of A- by Standard and Poor’s and A3 by Moody’s.

The main demand now for the International Islamic Liquidity Management (IILM) Corporation is to find the most common denominator among the jurisdictions for the global Islamic finance market.
Chief Executive Officer Mahmoud AbuShamma stated that IILM would use the US dollar, an international currency which is widely used, but may look at other local currencies later depending on the requirements of the market.

Maybank Islamic (MI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank Syariah Mandiri (BSM), Indonesia, to set up cross border collaboration in all Islamic treasury and trade finance matters.
This collaboration is going to set the terms of cooperation between the two institutions in relation to enhancing cross-border liquidity flows and, as well as, increasing and diversifying the application of Islamic financial solutions.

A challenge has appeared for practitioners, professionals and scholars of Islamic Microfinance and that is to draw a standard Islamic Microfinance Model’s out line, which could encircle the needs and issues of the social and commercial both modes of poverty alleviation.
The real requirement of the industry is a sustainable faith-based microfinance model.
In case of a faith based model the situation is very interesting because it is not totally depended on product development experts, who have prooved their expertise by developing poverty alleviation products in the recent past.

Abu Dhabi's First Gulf Bank has authorized Citi , HSBC and Standard Chartered to arrange investors meetings starting July 21 after which the lender could launch sukuk.

The Thai laws were discussed by Siripen Kaodara and Stephen Jaggs.
Although Thailand had a Muslim population of approximately nine million and an Islamic banking system which dates back to 1998, it previously lacked the necessary legal infrastructure for high profile Islamic products such as sukuk.
Three years ago, Thailand passed the Act on Trusts for Capital Market Transactions (Trust Act) which introduced the concept of ‘trust’ into the Thai civil law system. The main regulation, which sets out the approval and filing requirements for sukuk, took effect on the 16th January 2011 (Sukuk Regulation).