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The 2015 issue of the Islamic Social Finance Report focuses on the zakah, awqaf and Islamic microfinance sectors in six countries in the sub-Saharan Africa - Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa and Tanzania. This issue of the Islamic Social Finance Report (ISFR) presents the trends, future challenges and prospects for the various segments of the Islamic social finance sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study involved collection and analysis of data and information pertaining to legal and regulatory frameworks as well as good and bad practices at macro, meso and micro levels. The observations have serious policy implications and therefore, may form the basis of further research and policy dialogue.

One of the featured sessions at the Global Islamic Economy Summit from 5-6 October was on the role of Islamic finance in financial inclusion. This is an interesting subject because it has primarily been seen only from the perspective that Islamic finance is able to promote inclusiveness by offering a Shari'ah-compliant solution to people whose exclusion is driven by their reluctance or unwillingness to engage with the conventional financial sector. While this represents an important segment of the market for Islamic finance, this mindset limits its potential greatly to just those Muslims located in jurisdictions friendly to Islamic finance and within those countries to the Muslims who have access.

The Plastic Bank is turning plastic waste into a currency that can be exchanged to help lift people out of poverty & transition them into a self-sustaining life of entrepreneurship. Re-purposing / exchange centers for plastic waste are set up in areas that have high concentration of poverty and plastic pollution. The mandate is to provide a ladder of opportunity for the world’s poor to ascend from poverty by providing access to education, opportunities and 3D printing services. The exchange process for our recycled “Social Plastic” improves the life of a disadvantaged person while cleaning our planet. The higher the worldwide demand becomes, the higher the reward will be for harvesting Social Plastic.

The Gulf’s state-linked firms are being forced to wean themselves off direct government funding, and focus more on capital markets and private investment, to push ahead with their building and infrstructure projects in an era of cheap oil. Thus, the future are projects that connect to private investment. This could be a boon for bankers, who have long wanted to play a bigger role in arranging financing packages for Gulf governments. So far the shift is most evident in the smaller Gulf nations which lack huge cash reserves but have big projects in the pipeline: Oman and Bahrain. But the change is also occurring at some of the region’s largest enterprises.

The WIBC Leaderboard announced today the global rankings of Islamic banks in terms of Cost-to-Income ratio, one of the financial performance sub-indicators of the Leaderboard. No less than three Qatar-based banks have appeared in the top 5 Islamic banks in the GCC based on the Cost-to-Income ratio rankings. As per the rankings, Masraf Al Rayan and Qatar International Islamic Bank, both based in Qatar are positioned at the top of Islamic financial institutions in the GCC with a ratio of 20.6% and 24.4% respectively. The Cost-to-Income ratio is calculated based on non-interest operating cost divided by the sum of net interest income and non-interest operating income.

Noor Bank is all set to launch a Sharia-compliant and Sustainable Equity Index-linked investment, targeted at the bank’s high-net worth and priority banking customers, the bank’s treasurer Damian White said. Under the new index, the bank will offer its clients a basket of 20 chosen Sharia-compliant European equities screened for sustainability measures. The 100 per cent capital protected investment offers a fixed coupon for the first two years and the uncapped index performance at maturity at the end of three years. The format of the investment is through an Islamic structured deposit.

The Malaysian government announced new incentives for "ethical" Islamic bonds and home loans in the 2016 budget which was delivered in parliament on Friday, as Prime Minister Najib Razak doled out populist incentives to shore up support. Najib said Malaysia would cut taxes on issuance costs of SRI sukuk, and also that sharia-compliant loan instruments would be given a 20 percent stamp duty exemption when they were used to finance home purchases. Other initiatives for the Islamic finance sector will be announced later, Najib said without elaborating. Attracting private sector firms has become more important this year because the central bank has shifted away from selling its own sukuk.

The country’s top anti-graft body arrested two more accused of cheating public and depriving them of their hard-earned money in the multi-billion rupee Modaraba scam. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Rawalpindi circle on Saturday arrested Mufti Muhammad Idrees and Abdul Malik Bajouri, directors of Fayazi Gujranwala Industries. The accused deprived various gullible individuals of Rs8.2 billion by wooing them into investing in the scheme for attractive profits. The NAB has so far arrested 34 accused, including Mufti Muhammad Ehsanul Haq, CEO of the Fayazi Gujranwala Industries and recovered Rs1.73 billion from them.

The Malaysian government announced the new incentives for "ethical" Islamic bonds in the 2016 budget which was delivered by Prime Minister Najib Razak. The government originally introduced the concept of "ethical" sukuk to finance "sustainable and responsible investment" (SRI) in 2013. Sovereign wealth fund Khazanah sold 100 million ringgit ($23.7 million) of SRI sukuk in May this year but so far there have been no other issues. In Friday's budget, Najib said Malaysia would cut taxes on issuance costs of SRI sukuk, and also that sharia-compliant loan instruments would be given a 20 percent stamp duty exemption in certain cases.

Alkhabeer Capital, an asset management and investment firm based in Saudi Arabia, announced the signing of a strategic cooperation agreement with waqf incorporation and regulation law firm Al-Zamil & Al-Kharashi. The agreement provides for synergy between Alkhabeer Capital and Al-Zamil & Al-Kharashi Law Firm in the creation and regulation of waqf solutions. The agreement follows Alkhabeer's unveiling of its proprietary "Waqf" program earlier this year, which provides waqf wealth structuring and management advisory services to educational and charitable institutions, family offices, high net worth individuals and philanthropists who aspire to establish waqf entities.

The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank Group has launched the Islamic Social Finance Report 2015, which is the second edition in the series. This edition of the ISFR focuses on the Sub-Saharan Africa, outlining the regional trends and prospects as well as proposing policy recommendations for the Islamic social finance sector, which includes zakah, waqf and Islamic microfinance. It analyzed the regulatory environments and practices in six selected countries, namely Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa and Tanzania.

The early aughts were a dusty time in Amman, Jordan. Fueled both by optimistic real estate developers hoping to replicate the economic success of Dubai, and by an influx of Iraqi refugees across all levels of the economic spectrum, property prices and construction spiked. After 2008's financial crisis, though, much of that construction halted. Last year, Studio-X's Amman lab—the Jordanian outpost of Columbia University's worldwide network of architecture and urban planning research labs—set out to catalogue these abandoned buildings. Their developers are still waiting for enough money to complete them.

Last week, Ceres and its Investor Network on Climate Risk released an illuminating analysis of how some major companies are responding to shareholder engagement on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. The report, which covers the 2014 and 2015 proxy seasons, makes clear that long-term investors are putting increasing pressure on public companies to undertake ESG initiatives. Moreover, while most company responses are incremental and tailored to placate pesky activist shareholders — and others fall short entirely — these investors have won some significant sustainability victories.

Saudi Arabia is the region's leader in built asset wealth according to the according to the latest Global Built Asset Wealth Index published by Arcadis. The index calculates the value of all the buildings and infrastructure that contribute to economic productivity in 32 countries, which collectively make up 87% of global GDP. On average, countries analyzed have a built asset stock worth 2.9 times GDP. China now has a built asset wealth of US$ 47.6 trillion, overtaking the USA which comes in second place with a wealth of US$ 36.8 trillion. On a regional basis, Saudi Arabia has a built asset wealth of US$ 3.15 trillion, while the UAE and Qatar rank respectively at US$ 1.33 trillion and US$ 0.45 trillion.

Last week Credit Suisse released its annual Global Wealth Report. Their analysis shows that the top 1% of people now own 50% of the world’s wealth. However, the report had another finding that was even more astonishing and largely overlooked. What they found was that, as a percentage of the world’s population, there are now more poor people in the United States and Europe than there are in China. 10% and 20% of the world’s poorest are in North America and Europe. Here, they define poor as lacking ‘wealth’, i.e. taking into account assets and liabilities like cash and debt. Credit Suisse estimates that half of the world has a net worth less than $3,210. And a large chunk of Americans and Europeans can’t make that cut because their net worth is negative.

The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) has issued a Working Paper on Financial Consumer Protection in Islamic Finance (WP-03). The objective of consumer protection requires that the regulator takes adequate measures to ensure that the claim made by a financial institution to sell its products and services is sufficiently justified. The Working Paper lists some important findings from behavioural economics on the relevance of financial consumers' information-processing capabilities and cognitive biases in ensuring the effectiveness of consumer protection measures. It also provides a summary of both traditional and new approaches to financial consumer protection.

A number of mechanisms have been developed to enable companies to execute Shariah compliant hedges. The most straightforward approach is through back-to-back loans – agreed separately – of different currencies, which do not carry any interest or any other benefit. However, this does not take into account forward FX rates and therefore tends to be used in day-to-day dealings between local traders and in small amounts. Another option is based on commodity murabaha whereby a financier or intermediary purchases goods from a supplier and sells them to an end-user at a deferred price that is marked-up to include the intermediary’s profit margin.

The collapse in oil prices, which have more than halved from their previous peaks, has not been painless for Saudi Arabia. However, it’s far too soon to start writing the kingdom’s obituary: Its economy is far better insulated now than it was during the slump of the 1980s and 1990s, when oil reached below $10 a barrel in 1998. Although spending increased in the oil boom years of the 2000s, Saudi Arabia saved quite a bit of money during this time. Cash reserves as a ratio of GDP reached close to 100 percent in 2014. Saudi Arabia will not incur a fiscal or currency crisis of any sorts for the next few years. Its balance sheet has recently made tremendous improvements.

L’AAOIFI entreprend l’initiative de faire traduire ses Shari’ah Standards en français selon une méthodologie rigoureuse pour assurer une traduction une traduction fiable comportant plusieurs niveaux de révision, d’édition et d’assurance qualité pour obtenir une édition française qui reflète fidèlement la connotation arabe de ces standards. A cet effet, l’AAOIFI invite les prestataires de traduction qualifiés pour cette mission à soumettre leurs offres financières et techniques pour la traduction des Shari’ah Standards de l’AAOIFI (54 volumes) de l’Arabe au Français, conformément aux Termes de Référence téléchargeables ci-dessous.

The Islamic Development Bank's (IDB) ordinary capital resources has increased its use of sukuk instruments, not only boosting its lending capacity but also promoting the global Islamic financial markets, Moody's Investors Service said in its report "Islamic Development Bank - Ordinary Capital Resources". The IDB currently has a long-term issuer rating of Aaa with a stable outlook. Despite increased leverage from sukuk issuance, the IDB benefits from a large and expanding capital base. because of the recent general capital increase. The debt-to-equity ratio is expected to rise to 125% in the coming years, a level still well below that of other Aaa-rated MDBs.