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Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd, which has a 26% corporate and commercial banking portfolio, is looking to raise the figure to 30% by end-2015 to reduce its dependency on consumer banking from 74% to 70%. It is looking to further tap the green technology sector, particularly hydropower projects, as well as the infrastructure sector, to up the commercial banking contribution. Managing director Datuk Seri Zukri Samat noted that the bank intends to focus on organic growth for the time being, even as it looks into the possibility of a merger and acquisition (M&A) beyond 2017. He also said Bank Islam’s overall financing growth is expected to be lower for its financial year 2015.

Al Barak Bank Egypt's total cash and due from Central Bank of Egypt reached around EGP 3.656 billion (US$ 229.8 million) at the end of June 2015 versus EGP 1.850 billion at the end of December 2014. The financial lists showed that bank's investments in governmental notes recorded 5.319 billion Egyptian pounds at the end of June 2015 opposed to 3.604 billion Egyptian pounds at the end of 2014, making EGP 1.71 billion increase. According to the lists, Al Baraka Bank Egypt 's total volume of Murabaha, Mudaraba and Musharka for customers hit EGP8.534 billion at the end of June 2015 compared to EGP8.462 billion at the end of 2014.

Bankers expect the overall profitability to be moderate this year while top-line growth is expected to be significantly lower, while factors such as improved recoveries, stronger collateral values and lower provisions could continue to boost their bottom lines. Non-performing loans (NPLs) and provision figures for the first two quarters confirm this argument. For Emirates NBD (ENBD), during the first half, the impaired loan ratio improved to 7.4 per cent from 7.9 per cent at the end of 2014. For Mashreq, NPLs remained stable at Dh2.8 billion in June 2015, leading to NPLs to gross loans ratio of 3.7 per cent at the end of June 2015.

Ibdar Bank, a Bahrain-based wholesale Islamic investment bank, has reported an increase of 51 per cent in total revenues at $11.1 million for the six months ended June 30, when compared with the same period last year. A statement by the bank said total profits for the period increased by 79pc to $2.54m after an impairment charge of $2.2m relating to legacy assets. Excluding these one-off charges, said the bank, it achieved improved profitability of $4.72m when compared with $1.96m in the first half last year.

Islami Bank Bangladesh, the financier of Swan Garments over the last 30 years, plans to donate Tk 1.39 crore to clear the workers' one-month salary, the bank's Managing Director Mohammad Abdul Mannan said. Mannan hopes the bank's Board of Directors will agree to give away the fund as a lifeline to the company. The bank cannot invest further in Swan Garments, which has 1,300 workers in two units, as the company does not have any legal owner now, he said. Islami Bank will need the central bank's permission to further bankroll the factory, the loans of which have already been classified, Mannan said. Disputes over Swan's ownership need to be settled first to resume its operations, he said.

Banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council are starting to realize that if they want to capture more female customers then they need to recruit more female bankers. Samina Akram is helping empower women in Islamic Finance, running a London-based consulting firm based on Shariah-compliant finance after years running Merrill Lynch's Islamic finance wealth management business. The wheels are turning a little faster for women in the boardroom, according to leadership consulting firm Heidrick & Struggles. Its recent Board Monitor report showed that of 339 new directors appointed to Fortune 500 boardrooms in 2014, 99 were women.

Moody's Investors Service has affirmed Masraf Al Rayan's (MAR) A2/Prime-1 issuer ratings and baa3 baseline credit assessment (BCA) and adjusted BCA. At the same time, Moody's changed the outlook on the bank's long term issuer ratings to positive from stable. Moody's affirmation reflects MAR's continued strong core financial fundamentals with (1) consistently strong asset quality performance, (2) strong and stable profitability and (3) solid capital buffers. The change in the outlook to positive from stable reflects the ongoing improvements in MAR's business and geographic diversification. Further underpinning Moody's view on the outlook is Qatar's considerable economic strength.

Seychelles-based BMI Offshore Bank (BMIO), partly owned by BMI Bank Bahrain, is being converted into a Sharia-compliant bank, it has emerged. This follows a visit to Seychelles by a delegation from BMI Bank, a subsidiary of Al Salam Bank-Bahrain (ASBB), led by the parent’s executive committee chairman Hussein Mohammed Al Meeza along with a number of senior officials. The delegation called on Seychelles President James Alix Michel in the country’s capital Victoria. During the meeting, President Michel hailed initiatives undertaken by BMIO, in which BMI Bank owns a 50 per cent stake.

A local consortium led by Al-Karam Group has offered to buy the 144.20 million shares of BankIslami Pakistan Limited (BIPL), which the bank's majority shareholder, Dubai Bank PJSC, tends to sell. The potential acquirer of BIPL's shares came in the limelight after Wednesday's stock filing of Jahangir Siddiqui and Company Limited (JSCL) in which the company disclosed that Dubai Bank PJSC had offered it, along with another shareholder of BankIslami, the saleable 14.3 percent stakes of BIPL. The Dubai Bank was bound, under the Founding Shareholders' Agreement it had signed with JICL and other stakeholders, to first ask, through issuing first refusal, the existing stakeholders if they wanted to increase their shareholdings in the bank.

Samina Akram left her job at Merrill Lynch International Bank eight years ago to start her own consultancy in London, specialising in sharia-compliant finance. hat started as an informal ladies lunch club with other women in the industry will this week become the first global Women in Islamic & Ethical Finance Forum, a conference for more than 200 people at KPMG’s Canary Wharf offices in London. Akram, 36, who set up Samak Consultants, seeks to support women in an industry in which they face more obstacles than in conventional banking due to religious conservatism, restrictions on mixed-gender working environments and stereotypes about women in Islamic finance.

Nigeria’s Jaiz Bank has doled out N500 million to charity through its Jaiz Foundation. Mallam Ismail Adamu, the Group Head, Public Sector of the bank said that the bank had a capital base of N42 billion as of June, 2015 and a customer base of 139,977 with 73 per cent of them Christians. Adamu, who represented the bank’s Managing Director, Muhammad Nurul-Islam, said that the bank in 2014 made a profit of N157 million. He said that the bank renders several services ranging from Deposit, Mobile banking, Automated Teller Machine (ATM), Internet banking and other Islamic services, while all haram (Illegal) money’s are given out to charity through Jaiz Foundation.

Iran has asked the government and the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) to return the assets of Iranian entities remaining on the accounts of bankrupt Azerbaijani Royal Bank. Officials have appealed to the Azerbaijani government and CBA on the issue of solving the problem with the money of the Export Development Bank of Iran and other entities of the country, which remained on the accounts of Azerbaijani Royal Bank, which has declared its bankruptcy.

The Supreme Council for Women (SCW)’s general secretariat held a meeting with Al Salam Bank Bahrain during which the two sides explored means of activating the National Model for the inclusion of women’s needs in banking. The meeting also explored provision of policy and ancillary services for women in the workplace. This included a nursery for children of bank employees after a feasibility study by the bank to determine its need and support for recruitment of handicapped people in financial and banking institutions. The meeting discussed challenges facing women in assuming leading posts and cultural and social issues, especially women’s night-time office duty and their aspirations in career progression.

Two Iranian private banks – “Parsian” and “Pasargad” are interested in opening branches in Azerbaijan, the head of the secretariat of the Azerbaijani-Iranian intergovernmental commission on cooperation in trade, economic and humanitarian spheres Mehdi Mohtasham said.

Islamic banks are growing faster than their conventional counterparts, but still focus on a limited number of core markets, according to a study made by EY. The study’s report said that Islamic banks in six main markets (Qatar, Indonesia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the UAE and Turkey) gained $625 billion by end of 2013, which is equivalent to 80 per cent of the global Islamic finance market. The report expects that total Islamic banking assets in six main markets will hit $1.8 trillion by 2019. The Islamic banking sector is expected to achieve some gains in other markets like Egypt, Pakistan and North African countries like Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

In a statement to the Tadawul, Bank Aljazira has issued a correction to its financial results for H1 2015. Originally the bank had stated total operating income for Q2 of SAR 612 million. However, after reclassifying gains from the disposal of land, Bank Aljazira says total operating income for Q2 was SAR 1.184 billion. At first the bank had classified the gain of SAR 573 million on the disposal as non-operating income. The gain has now been reclassified as operating revenue on the recommendation of the bank’s external auditors.

Albaraka Turk Katilim Bankasi AS mandates BC Islamic Bank (E.C.), Barwa Bank Q.S.C., Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC, Emirates NBD Capital Limited, Kuwait International Bank ve Standard Chartered Bank for a murabaha syndication loan with a total initial amount of $400 million in EUR and USD currency. The loan is going to have maturity periods of 367 days and 2 years 3 days.

Barwa Bank's net profit for the half-year stood at QAR 412 million, while earnings per share rose to QAR 1.39in the first half of 2015, compared with QAR 1.38over the corresponding period in 2014. Underlined by growth across its financing assets and investment securities, the bank's total assets soared by 16% to QAR 41.3 billion for the first half of the year; financing assets alone registered an increase of 10% to exceed QAR 24.4 billion. Owing to Barwa Bank's focus on product and service development and integration across business segments, as well as to a heavy push on tech-driven innovation, customer deposits for the first half of 2015, increased by 4% to stand at QAR 23.2 billion.

Jaiz Bank Plc, the non-interest Islamic bank, is set to commence operations in Ibadan, Oyo State before the end of this year as it moves to expand its operations in the South West, according to the Group Head, Public Sector of the bank, Mallam Ismail Adamu. He said all documentation and other logistics to this end were already being put in place. Adamu said the bank made a profit of N157m in 2014 and gave out up to N500m in charity through an arm of the bank called JAIZ Foundation. Chairman of the Zonal Committee for the Operation, Alhaji Lasun Sanusi (SAN), said the bank was aware of the teething problems it would face, expressing optimism, however, it would survive because of the success it has so far recorded.

Dubai Bank PJSC wants to sell its shareholding in BankIslami Pakistan, a stock filing said on Wednesday. Another shareholder, Jahangir Siddiqui and Company, reported that it has received a letter from the UAE-based bank, saying it wants to sell 144.2 million shares in BankIslami Pakistan. The stake that Dubai Bank PJSC wants to sell constitutes 14.3% of the total issued shares of BankIslami Pakistan. Dubai Bank is offering its stake to Jahangir Siddiqui and Company and another (unnamed) shareholder of BankIslami Pakistan under its shareholders’ agreement that mandates a right of first refusal on a proportionate basis.