IslamicFinance.de

Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority is eyeing sale of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, in several tranches to finance a modernisation of the kingdom’s airports.

PT Jakarta Futures Exchange (JFX) is targeting to launch sharia futures commodity products (murabahah) in July 2011.
The company had just set up a partnership to create sharia products with National Sharia Council (DSN) last December.

The Middle East and North Africa's (Mena) first multi-asset exchange will begin live operations on February 7 at its facility at Bahrain Financial Harbour. The Bahrain Financial Exchange (BFX) will adopt a phased approach to its trading whereby its Islamic division, Bait Al Bursa, will start its e-Tayseer platform for general use and then its conventional segment on March 7.
This two-phased approach is designed to give participants sufficient time to market and develop business in the BFX's Islamic sector in advance of launching the conventional market.

The lack of long-term investment products is undermining growth in Malaysia's Islamic insurance industry, spurring calls for more sukuk maturing beyond 10 years in the world??s biggest market for the debt.

Jordan Dubai Islamic Bank has recently announced the extension of its Islamic Home Financing Program until the end of March, 2011. This extension takes advantage of the extension of the discount in registration fees and sales tax on property by 50%, according to the amendments on the Jordanian land and property registration laws which is effective until 31/03/2011.
The Bank's decision comes in answer to popular demand of its clients.

The conventional way in which banks offer Shariah-compliant services and likely boost the performance of banks that focus solely on such services will be changed by the new rules for Islamic banking in Qatar released by the Central Bank in late August.
The new regulations, made public on August 29, prohibit conventional banks from allocating more than 10% of issued capital to Islamic banking operations and from opening additional branches for Islamic banking.

Indonesia has moved to boost Islamic finance by proposing a series of tax incentives for the sector. The incentives are likely to stimulate sukuk issuance.
The measures will also encourage sales of Islamic debt from Indonesia, which has the world’s biggest Muslim population, with 88% of all inhabitants identifying themselves as being of that faith.

Brazil’s first Islamic bond may be a private sale by a company in 2012.
Daud Vicary Abdullah, global Islamic finance leader at Deloitte Corporate Advisory Services Sdn. has pointed out that he thinks that it will be a corporate.

Kuwait Finance House rejected a plan to restructure the debt of Gulfinvest International KSC, a Kuwaiti investment company.
Gulfinvest is yet to be officially informed of the decision by Kuwait Finance, which has made provision for the company’s loans.

Bank of London and the Middle East plc whose main shareholders are Boubyan Bank, National Bank of Kuwait, the Securities House and the Public Institution for Social Security, announced today the launch of its Premier Deposit Account (PDA) in Pound Sterling, US Dollars and Euro for Kuwait investors.
BLME's PDA offers investors competitive returns on their deposit with BLME when compared with other UK Financial Institutions' deposit products.

Indonesia plans to issue a 3-year maturing sukuk for retail investors on Feb. 23.
The sukuk, or Islamic bond, will be offered to all individuals with Indonesian citizenship, to widen the investor base.

Qatar Islamic Bank is searching for acquisitioning targets in Indonesia in order to boost its presence in Asia and tap demand for sharia banking products in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Qatar Islamic is studying several potential candidates in Indonesia that have been identified by Asian Finance Bank.

Islamic financial institutions are expected to continue to show resilience in the face of a challenging economic scenario. This is despite the fact that growth levels of the Islamic finance industry, at more than 20 per cent per annum for the past several years, came under tremendous pressure in 2010.
Scarcity of data and under-investment in analytical tools means that Islamic banks' focus remains limited to a handful of asset classes while their operating costs are, in many cases, higher than their conventional peers. Future opportunities may no longer come from traditional captive clientele. Instead, Islamic financial institutions urgently need to upgrade their business models to tap mainstream segments.

Kuwait's Strategia Investment Company has received the approval of the ministry of commerce and industry to launch an Islamic investment fund with a capital ranging between 5 million Kuwaiti dinars ($17.7 million) and KWD50 million.
This fund will invest in the shares of shariah-compliant companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange and on other bourses in the Gulf Cooperation Council states.

Capital Standards Rating CSR has assigned an Insurer Financial Strength Rating (IFSR) of 'BB' and a National rating of 'BBBkw' to Al Safat Takaful Company. That means that the outlook is stable.
The rating is based on the consolidated financial statements until June 2010.

Kuwait's indebted The Investment Dar Company held its first face-to-face meeting with the reconstituted Coordinating Committee last Thursday in Dubai.
At the meeting, the documentation relating to the official engagement of the committee was finalised, it said, and added that committee membership now includes Jordan International Bank, ABC Islamic Bank, Lloyds TSB Middle East, Al Rajhi Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait.

SEI announced a partnership with Allfunds Bank to offer a greater choice of investment solutions for Shariah investors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The agreement brings together SEI's Shariah asset management capabilities and Allfunds' platform and intermediary services to give banks, wealth managers, and insurance providers the opportunity to access world-class Shariah-compliant funds and deliver more efficient and diversified investment choices to their clients.

The 2nd annual thematic workshop organised by the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance (IIBI) and the International Shari’ah Research Academy for Islamic Finance (ISRA) in collaboration with Thomson Reuters on 29th November, 2010 was a huge success with more than 120 delegates managing to attend despite adverse weather and a tube strike on the day. The workshop held in London was sponsored by Westlaw Business.

A number of financial institutions in the Middle East still try to recover from the effects of the global financial crisis. One of the most severely affected institutions was Gulf Finance House (GFH), which has been undergoing some radical restructuring over the last 12 months. Ted Pretty, brought in from Macquarie Capital in late 2009, has already slashed staffing costs by about 66%; sold off some of the company’s assets to realise much needed capital and restructured debt, giving the company more time to meet its debt obligations.

Bank Al Jazira has signed an agreement to grant medium-term Islamic financing worth 242 million Saudi riyals ($64.53 million) to the local Eastern Industrial Co., or EICO.
The financing, the second for this project by the bank, will partially fund EICO's project to set up a corrosion resistant fiberglass plant in Jubail Industrial City.