IslamicFinance.de

Oman's Alizz Islamic bank has announced the completion of its comprehensive training plan, as part of preparations for to launch operations in the fourth quarter of the year. The training programme introduced branch, call centre and operational staff to the Shari'ah-compliant lender's full range of Islamic products and services and its corporate values.

Bahrain's Al Salam Bank has agreed to acquire fellow Bahraini lender BMI Bank , an affiliate of Oman's Bank Muscat , through a share-swap deal. Al Salam will exchange 11 of its shares for each BMI Bank share to create the kingdom's fourth-largest commercial bank. The tie-up is still subject to shareholder approval, with meetings to vote on assent due to be held in either September or October. Shares in Al Salam were 5.9 percent higher at 0726 GMT in muted trading. The tie-up will create a bank with assets worth BD1.79bn ($4.75bn), according to second-quarter results from both institutions.

Following the introduction of the Islamic Banking Regulatory Framework (IBRF) in December 2012, Omani banks are now allowed to offer Islamic banking services. Moody's views this as credit positive for the banks as expansion into Islamic banking has the potential to strengthen their franchises and diversify revenue generation, particularly for the largest banks in the system, which will be able to leverage their existing infrastructure and networks.

Bahrain's Ithmaar Bank has announced its chief executive Mohammed Bucheerei is to retire at the end of August and be replaced by Ahmed Abdul Rahim, currently general manager, as acting head. Bucheerei led the bank's transition from an Islamic investment bank to a retail Islamic lender offering a range of Shari'ah-compliant products.

Although Islamic banking in still its infancy in sub-Saharan Africa, it is heading for its breakthrough. By the end of this decade it’s quite possible that banking complying with Shariah law could grow to account for up to 10 per cent of banking assets in five or six sub-Saharan African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria. With the first licenses granted in Kenya just 5 to 6 years ago, that would make Africa’s leap into Islamic banking much faster than markets such as Pakistan and Indonesia, where Islamic financial services have been available for longer. Standard Chartered sees Africa as the next frontier for the industry. That’s why the company will be launching its Islamic banking brand, Saadiq, in Kenya shortly, with plans to expand into other countries in both East and West Africa in the future.

Bank Negara has rejected BIMB Holdings’ proposed move to issue sukuk using Bank Islam Malaysia’s shares as security for the debt, but has allowed the former to acquire the remaining 49% stake in the latter. The central bank has then requested to source and notify the bank on suitable alternative assets as security for the proposed sukuk. An analyst felt the rejection by the central bank would not deter or derail BIMB’s plans to acquire Bank Islam, although it may slow down the purchase process. Last month, BIMB had announced the proposed acquisition of the remaining stake in Bank Islam – 30.5% from the Dubai Financial Group and 18.5% from Lembaga Tabung Haji – for a total cash consideration of US$884.6mil (RM2.87bil). This was to be financed via a two-for-five rights issue of 426.7 million new shares, and a sukuk issuance of up to RM1.47bil.

Kuwait's Warba Bank will be listed on the country's stock exchange tomorrow after a restriction on public trading of the stock ended. A majority of the shares in the lender, set up with a capital of 100 million dinars ($351m), were gifted to Kuwaiti nationals as part of the state's wealth sharing, with each citizen receiving 684 shares. The remaining 24 per cent is owned by the sovereign wealth fund Kuwait Investment Authority. The listing does not include sale of any new shares. Shareholders were restricted from trading their stock on the exchange for three years after the April 2010 establishment date.

Nigerian Jaiz Bank has entered into a partnership with Teasy Mobile Money, a CBN-licensed Mobile Payment Operator, to provide financial services to Nigerians, through Mobile Phone. This is part of their efforts to implement financial services inclusion of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to everyone in the society. Jaiz bank will collaborate with Teasy Mobile Money in developing programs, projects and other activities that are targeted at providing a robust mobile payment and deposit platform capable of delivering end-to-end mobile banking solutions. The service will allow customers to have access to their money beyond banking hours, anywhere. Additionally, Teasy Mobile Money customers will now be able to use Jaiz Bank offices nationwide as Service Points.

Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt has announced its net profit for the quarter ending June 30, 2013, jumped around 68% to EGP413.2m. The Shari'ah-compliant lender reported net profits of EGP281m for the corresponding period a year earlier.

Ibrahim Hassan will assume his post as the new CEO and managing director of the RHB Banking Group's Islamic banking arm from Sept 2, 2013. He will be responsible for overseeing the group's overall Islamic banking business and operations including driving its revenue, expanding the group's product range and customer portfolio growth across local and international boundaries. Prior to this, Ibrahim was the president director at PT Bank Maybank Syariah Indonesia. Ibrahim's appointment leaves the RHB Banking Group with only one vacancy – the top post at RHB Bank Bhd. RHBCap group managing director Kellee Kam is currently assuming the responsibilities of RHB Bank managing director in addition to his role at the group level. Earlier this month, RHB Investment Bank Bhd officer-in-charge Mike Chan Cheong Yuen was promoted to be its managing director and CEO.

Al Baraka Bank Egypt, a subsidiary banking unit of Al Baraka Banking Group, announced the winning of the 'The Majestic Five Continents Award for Quality and Excellence' granted by the European Foundation 'Other Ways Management Association Club'. The Award will be delivered in a grand ceremony to be held in Geneva on 18 November 2013, and will be attended by official delegations and businessmen from 40 countries around the world. Al Baraka Bank Egypt won the prize as a result of aspects like high quality of customer service, creativity, teamwork, diversity of products of development and corporate finance, lease and assets finance, retail and treasury products, and foreign operations. Mr. Ashraf El Ghamrawy, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Al Baraka Bank Egypt, emphasized the bank's pioneering role in development finance and social responsibility through the Bank's Zakat fund, and the consolidation of partnership relations with all government and private agencies, among others.

Bank Islam Malaysia is confident of achieving more than 15% growth in profit before tax and zakat this year compared with RM600.3 million last year. Managing director Datuk Seri Zukri Samat said consumer banking would continue to be the main contributor to achieve the target. 70% of the financing portfolio is to be contributed by consumer banking and the balance of 30% from corporate and commercial banking. For the first quarter of this year, the bank raked in profit before tax and zakat of RM151.5mil. However, Zukri said the economic growth which is somewhat slow currently and the new guidelines on responsible lending might affect the bank's financing growth.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) plans to expand in North Africa as the lender seeks to access more-populous markets. The bank applied for licenses in Algeria and Libya and is considering Tunisia and Morocco, Chief Executive Officer Tirad Mahmoud said. Interest in Shariah-compliant banking has increased since 2011, when revolts in North Africa catapulted Islamists to power. Moreover, the bank wants to be better placed to serve companies, such as Dubai-based mall operator Majid Al Futtaim, which operate across the Middle East and North Africa and rely on global lenders such as HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Citigroup Inc. Mahmoud said MENA expansion is essential to capture market share from foreign lenders.

Islamic banking is a growing option in America as various Islamic banks pop up across the country to service those who wish to preserve Shari’aa law or those who just want to use an Islamic bank. The key to these Banks is the shared risk. If the financial models show that the borrower is making a bad investment, the bank will tell them that it’s a bad economic decision and it will not invest with them. The underlying message is that the borrower is in a partnership with the bank, so there are no hidden fees. This may be a much better and less risky model to consider that can get you on the property market with just a 5 percent deposit. Islamic bank also offer Islamic bank accounts. Money from demand and checking accounts cannot be used in lending, it’s considered a trust.

Jordan Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour reportedly said that the Government is discussing plans to establish a state-owned bank that would offer low cost credit facilities to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The proposed bank would not accept deposits but would operate on similar lines to the former Industrial Development Bank (IDB) with the aim of boosting SMEs and the broader industrial sector. The IDB was sold and now operates as the Shari’ah-compliant Jordan Dubai Islamic Bank. The Jordan Government aims to be the largest shareholder in the proposed bank but has indicated that international and regional financial institutions would be interested to become partners.

The founders of Bosna Bank International (BBI), the first bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina to do business based on Islamic principles, are to inject an additional 15 million euros to its capital stock to ensure business growth, according to the bank's director Amer Bukvic. The Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Dubai Islamic Bank and the Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank had decided to inject fresh capital into BBI to the amount of 30 million convertible marks (EUR 15.3m). The fresh capital will be used to reinforce the bank's position in the medium-sized banking segment on the Bosnian banking market. BBI's assets will amount to 500 million convertible marks (EUR 255.7m) after the capital increase. Moreover, Bukvic announced that the bank would be releasing loans to the value of 300 million convertible marks (EUR 153.4m).

The Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB) has opted to integrate Salesforce.com with its core banking systems in a bid to avoid costly and time-consuming upgrades that it would have faced if it had decided to roll-out on-premise solutions, such as Oracle Siebel or Microsoft Dynamics. Even though Salesforce is slightly more expensive over a three year Return on Investment (ROI) period, COO Mohamed Gamil believes that the benefits of a public cloud platform far outweigh the extra investment required. The Bank has just completed its third major project using the Salesforce platform, where it is now looking to bring on board as many systems as it can, so as to make application processes for online customers as seamless as posible. IBB went live with a new on-boarding application in January 2012, where it is now also integrated with the bank’s Misys platform using IFrame, so that existing customers can also take advantage of applying for new current accounts online using the Salesforce tools.

Tunisia's El Wifack Leasing has applied to regulators to become the country's third fully-fledged Islamic bank. El Wifack, which has its debt rated BB+ by Fitch Ratings, also said it planned to raise its capital by five million dinars ($3.1m) to 25m dinars, regardless of whether it received approval to operate as an Islamic bank. Currently, Sharia-compliant business accounts for just 2.5 per cent of the Tunisian financial sector with only two fully operational Islamic banks, Zitouna Bank and the Tunisian arm of Bahrain's Al Baraka Banking Group. Last month, parliament approved a law that will allow the state to issue sukuk. The Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank has offered Tunisia a financial guarantee to issue a sukuk worth $600m, though the issue could be delayed to 2014 because of political instability and approaching elections.

Nigerian Islamic bank Jaiz Bank has announced its commencement of Foreign Exchange trading which now makes it eligible to carry out transactions for eligible Bureau de Change operators at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It will commence bidding for its BDC customers from all branches by the first week of September 2013. The bank has also commenced over the counter transactions of Basic Travel Allowance BTA sales at all its branches. Jaiz Bank began full operations as the first Non-Interest Bank in Nigeria in January, 2012 and has since expanded its branch network to 10. The capital base of the Bank has also grown from N5 billion when it started operations last year to about N10billion. This level of capitalisation enables the Bank to apply for National Banking license from the Central Bank of Nigerian if it chooses and thus position it to operate in all the States of the Federation.

Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd is said to be revisiting the idea of a merger, this time with a development financial institution (DFI). Among the possible candidates are Bank Rakyat Malaysia Bhd and Malaysian Industrial Development Finance Bhd (MIDF). DFIs are specialised financial institutions established by the Government with the specific mandate to develop and promote key sectors that are considered of strategic importance. Industry players say the idea of a merger between Bank Muamalat and Bank Rakyat is an attractive proposition as both are Islamic concerns, with Bank Rakyat being the country’s largest Islamic cooperative bank.For the financial year (FY) ended March 31, 2013, Bank Muamalat posted a record pre-tax profit of RM236mil. Bank Rakyat, meanwhile, has been enjoying profitable growth over the years.