IslamicFinance.de

Sales of Islamic bonds may increase 24 percent this year, led by Southeast Asia, as the region’s expansion helps drag the world out of recession, said CIMB Group Holdings Bhd., the leading arranger of such issuance.

The Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) is co-operating with the Mufties Council of Russia to translate AAOIFI's international Islamic finance standards into Russian language. The translated standards are expected to help regulatory authorities and financial institutions in developing Islamic finance in jurisdictions that use Russian language as their official language.

With the global financial crisis putting the spotlight on "casino capitalism" of the West, leading scholars and experts from the Arab world on Thursday pitched for interest-free Islamic banking as a solution and its introduction in India, home to the world's largest Muslim minority.

Efforts to make Bahrain and its economy more business friendly has attracted growing interest from the Gulf and beyond, Rasheed Al-Maraj, the Governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), told CNBC Europe’s “Closing Bell” programme in an interview from the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The Kazakh city of Almaty will host an international conference on development of Islamic finance in the Commonwealth of Independent States, Azerbaijan's news agency AzerTac reported Friday.

Khaleeji Commercial Bank head of treasury and capital markets Hussam Saif was a key speaker at the Leaders Summit Conference held in India.

CGAP, Deutsche Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and Grameen-Jameel announced the Islamic Microfinance Challenge 2010: Innovating Sustainable, Scalable, and Market-Driven Models. The contest is a joint initiative to promote the innovative design of Shariah-compliant products for Islamic microfinance clients.

The organizers are seeking original Islamic microfinance business proposals which are profitable, sustainable, scalable, and Shariah-compliant. Finalists of this competition will be awarded with grant funds as well as need-based technical support to launch a pilot project of their proposed business idea.

It offers a unique opportunity to showcase innovative business ideas, gain industry-wide recognition, and benefit from the funds and technical expertise of leading institutions in the microfinance and Islamic finance sectors.

Sharia-compliant investors are taking a renewed interest in commercial and residential real estate across the gulf region, trying to time any investments to catch a rebound in prices, Standard & Poor's told Reuters on Wednesday.

France must host a sukuk issuance this year to show it is serious about Islamic finance and overcome the legal uncertainties that caused a delay to a 1 billion euro ($1.37 billion) issuance, a lawyer working on the deal Told Reuters on Wednesday. At least one French Islamic corporate bond, or sukuk, had been expected last year but was delayed by legal hurdles.

Private equity will be a key growth engine for the Islamic finance industry, but fund managers need to better understand Sharia concepts before a market can develop, a top banker told Reuters on Wednesday. Like most parts of the world, the private equity market in the Middle East came to a standstill in 2009 as liquidity conditions and deal opportunities dried up.

Gulf Finance House plans to raise $250 million through asset sales this quarter, and has made lay-offs to cut costs after a regional real estate boom ended, its acting CEO told Reuters on Tuesday.

Standard Chartered Bank Saadiq expects to launch an Islamic commodity derivative in the first quarter, the bank's chief executive told Reuters on Tuesday.

Sharia-compliant Bank of London and the Middle East (BLME) is targeting the thousands of rich Gulf residents who spend part of the year in London, to boost its private banking arm, its head told Reuters. The Bank will offer investors access to leased assets such as equipment, trucks, railway carriages and aeroplanes. The Bank's customers will invest in short-term revolving finance facilities, which allow a borrower to draw down and repay amounts for short periods throughout the life of the facility.

The launch of the first template for an over-the-counter Islamic derivative contract is "imminent" and will encourage more companies to hedge their risks, an executive at a bank involved in its creation told Reuters on Tuesday. The contract, which is expected to pave the way for quicker and cheaper Islamic risk management and more frequent cross-currency transactions, was initially due to be launched a year ago.

CEO of HSBC Amanah will deliver the keynote address at Euromoney's Islamic Finance Summit in London on 23rd February 2010 at The Landmark.

In his speech, Mukhtar Hussian is expected to highlight how to put the economic crisis and lessons learnt from recent sukuk defaults to good use. He will also reveal how the industry can drive competitiveness with conventional banking, while ensuring stable growth through 'best in class' risk management. Also on the agenda: Why high-profile sukuk defaults have generated a timely debate, enforceability and the lessons the industry must learn about reputational risk.

Islamic finance growth will stay strong this year, as Southeast Asia drives demand for financial products that comply with Islamic or Sharia law, debt watcher Standard & Poor's said.

But the Philippines is unlikely to benefit from this since Islamic banking remains an uncharted territory here, an official of the country's lone Islamic bank said on Monday.

The launch of Europe’s first dedicated Islamic Finance and business Center at a mainstream British university, Aston Business School, which is part of Aston University in Birmingham, underlines the growing Islamic finance education industry in and out of the UK.

The El Shaarani Islamic Finance and Business Center, named after its benefactor El Shaarani, CEO of Surgi-Tech Group in Dubai, aims to establish Birmingham as the center for Islamic finance in the UK.

The global growth of Islamic finance and the UK banks’ long involvement in the sector since the early 1980s, has encouraged professional bodies, academic institutions and some private entities to set up Islamic finance courses ranging from certificates, diplomas, undergraduate, masters and post-graduate degrees in Islamic finance and economics.

“Islamic finance is, and will continue to be, an important part of the government’s overall commitment to ensuring a competitive financial services sector in the UK,” reiterated Sarah McCarthy-Fry MP, exchequer secretary to Treasury, in London at a seminar entitled “New Year — New Opportunities in Islamic Finance,” hosted by the international law firm, Norton Rose, in London recently.

This statement of intent coincides with two notable developments relevant to the European Islamic finance sector in the last two weeks or so. Firstly, the UK Treasury and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) have been working to remove barriers and uncertainty in the regulation of alternative finance investment bonds (sukuk).

Following consultation with the industry, the statutory instrument, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 Order 2010, was sent to the House of Commons in mid-January, and the Brown government is confident that the new regulations will come into effect by the end of February. These measures, stressed McCarthy-Fry, will reduce compliance and legal costs for these instruments, and facilitate the issuance of corporate sukuk in the UK.

It's a myth to assume Islamic finance products are safer than conventional products and underlying risks should be studied more carefully, Qatar's top regulator said on Wednesday.

Despite being billed as a safer alternative to traditional banking because assets must underpin deals, Islamic bondholders have found they may not have any more legal safeguards than conventional counterparts in the event of default.

Such issues were highlighted after sukuk -- or Islamic bonds -- had the first ever defaults last year.

Sukuk, one of the flagship products in the $1 trillion Islamic finance industry, are structured as profit-sharing or rental agreements and returns are derived from underlying assets because Islamic laws prohibits paying or earning interest.

The financial manager of Bank Melli Iran (BMI) has refuted the rumors on declaring bankruptcy by the bank, saying BMI is the largest bank in Iran and across the Islamic world, considering its total assets of around $54 billion. A report released in September, 2009 by Asian Banker showed that the world's top 100 Islamic banks increased their assets by 66% last year to more than $580 billion, compared to $350 billion in 2007, while rivals were trying to deal with the global financial downturn. According to the survey, BMI was standing at the top of the world's top 100 Islamic banks list in terms of assets, while Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank came in second, Press TV reported.