IslamicFinance.de

Bahrain's central bank is drafting legal documentation to set up a sharia board of scholars that would oversee the kingdom's Islamic finance sector. The central bank already has a sharia board but its scope is limited to vetting its own products. A country-level approach could help to limit differences between products, speed the design of new products and boost investor confidence. A "legal instrument" is now being prepared that would set out details of the sharia board, Khalid Hamad, the central bank's executive director of banking supervision, said. He did not specify a timeframe. The United Arab Emirates is the only other regulator in the Gulf to have announced a plan to adopt a centralised sharia approach.