The world’s fourth largest cocoa grinder Guan Chong (GCB) is undertaking a sukuk exercise for its future expansion plans. It is launching a sukuk wakalah programme of up to RM800mil in nominal value. According to managing diector Brandon Tay Hoe Lian, proceeds from the first tranche of issuance of RM300mil will go towards funding the ongoing construction of a new cocoa grinding facility in Ivory Coast, which is set to commence operations in the second half of 2021. The programme will also support the company's expansion in Europe, following the acquisitions of industrial chocolate provider Schokinag in Germany and the land and building in United Kingdom.
The role of Fintech platforms and services in supporting public services in Indonesia has become more prominent and relevant due to the global COVID-19 outbreak. Fintech service providers are now offering more digital payments options which allow Indonesians to pay for everyday expenses. Fintech investment platforms have also been launched. Financial tech startups have also announced that they’d like to help the nation’s government with disbursing Coronavirus related relief aid packages. Despite the efforts to establish a regulatory sandbox, there’s still a growing threat of illegal Fintech businesses. The Fintech sector in Indonesia remains focused on enabling greater financial inclusion by providing reliable payments and lending services to those who may be underserved by the traditional banking sector. However, these services must be well-regulated to ensure consumer protection.
Hesham Abdulla Al Qassim, Chairman of Emirates Islamic rang the market-opening bell to celebrate the listing by Emirates Islamic of a 500 million US dollar Sukuk on Nasdaq Dubai. The Bank achieved a profit rate of 1.827%, the lowest for a Sukuk issued by a UAE bank for 10 years, with subscription of 2.4 times. The issuance was rated A+ by Fitch Ratings. The nominal value of Sukuk currently listed in Dubai has reached 73.99 billion US dollars, one of the largest totals of any listing centre in the world. Following Emirates Islamic’s latest listing, 46% of Sukuk listings in Dubai by value are from UAE issuers and 54% from overseas issuers.
The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) has hired banks to arrange a five-year US dollar denominated sukuk. It has mandated Goldman Sachs International, HSBC and Standard Chartered as the global coordinators. They will be joined by Bank ABC, Boubyan Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD Capital, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Gulf International Bank, Goldman Sachs International, HSBC, the ICD, KFH Capital, LBBW, Mizuho Securities, Samba Capital, SMBC Nikko, Standard Chartered Bank and Warba Bank as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners.
Tezos Gulf received a Sharia Certificate from Shariyah Review Bureau (SRB). Tezos’ platform is backed by a global community of validators, researchers, and builders and is considered one of the first pure proof-of-stake blockchains. The Tezos blockchain has been utilised by numerous issuers of digital securities but mostly on the conventional side of the financial market. Tezos Gulf is a subsidiary of the Swiss-based Tezos Foundation. It was established to foster ecosystem development in the GCC region for the Tezos network, an open-source public blockchain for assets and applications.
The pandemic has brought the global economy to its knees and the lives we once knew as 'normal' have been turned on their head. At the same time, displacement and disruptions due to climate-related events such as storms, flooding and droughts have persisted and intensified. While causing great upheaval, the pandemic has provided an impetus for us to reset and reprioritise resources to reconstruct our economies and financial systems to be more sustainable and inclusive. In the case of the climate crisis, trillions are needed to help reach the goal of The Paris Agreement. The role of green bonds will be key. Malaysia continues to be the forefront of green sukuk, which caters to the needs of investors that prefer investments with a positive environmental impact.
The central bank of Kuwait’s board of directors has approved the establishment of the Higher Committee of Shariah Supervision for Islamic finance. The Committee’s key roles are to: give its opinions and advice to the central bank on Shariah compliance of financial transactions; propose general guidelines for products and services; propose controls to regulate the business of Shariah supervision bodies; conduct internal and external Shariah audits; give final decisions where deliberations of Shariah supervision authorities are inconclusive. Several countries have Shariah committees for Islamic finance at their central banks including Malaysia, Pakistan, Oman and the UAE. However, their powers differ from country to country.
IdealRatings Inc. launched the FTSE IdealRatings Sukuk Index incorporating IdealRatings’ Sukuk Shariah compliance screening methodology into the existing FTSE Sukuk Index methodology. The FTSE IdealRatings Sukuk Index tracks the performance of US Dollar-denominated, investment-grade Sukuk that are issued in the global markets. The screening of Shariah compliance for global Sukuk is based on the authentic methodology developed by IdealRatings. The methodology incorporates more than 150 Shariah standards to assign a pass / fail score based on a pre-determined threshold, and Sukuk must pass any mandatory standards set by IdealRatings.
According to Moody's Investors Service, net inflows into some large Islamic funds in the GCC countries have remained positive despite weaker markets and lower oil prices. The ratings agency said it expects growth in Islamic assets under management to slow between 2% and 4% this year. According to the Global Islamic Finance Markets Report, Shariah-compliant assets represent a significant portion of total banking assets of the GCC. While in the Middle East and North African region, Islamic banking assets represent 14% of total banking assets, in the GCC this market share crossed the 25% threshold. Globally, Islamic finance assets are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.5% to hit $3.4 trillion during the next five years. Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are the largest Islamic financial service in the world, accounting for almost two-thirds of Islamic assets under management between them.
COVID-19 has disrupted the status quo in a number of ways. Firstly, Arab philanthropy has stepped up support to digital solutions in online learning, healthcare and mental well-being and income generation. Educate–Me, a social enterprise and investee of Alfanar Foundation runs a community school and organizes curricula training for teachers in Cairo. The crisis triggered Educate-Me to conduct a mapping exercise of existing digital capabilities of communities and based on the findings it has created a simple and workable system. Alfanar Foundation has also acted on the crisis through the “Survive and Thrive Campaign” by stepping up marketing and fundraising efforts aimed to support its social enterprise investees in Lebanon. Embracing the idea that technology can potentially play a more enabling role in microfinance is another immediate effect of the COVID-19 crisis. It is important to give philanthropic support to innovation in new technologies and digital solutions for social problem-solving, which has been largely untapped in Arab countries.
Five investors have been removed from the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), in the first such move by the group for those failing to meet its minimum requirements. The delistings follow criticism in recent years that the PRI was not doing enough to ensure members lived up to the principles, including to embed environmental, social and governance-related issues in their investment decision-making. The new standards require members to have a responsible investment policy covering at least half of all managed assets, staff responsible for implementing it and senior-level oversight. The PRI said it now plans to toughen membership requirements further and will launch a consultation at a meeting on Oct 21.
Moody's expects Islamic financing in Saudi Arabia to reach around 80% of system-wide loans in the next 12-18 months, up from 78% of loans in 2019 and 70% in 2013. Moody’s noted that corporates and households are increasingly using Islamic products amid the economic challenges posed by low oil prices and the coronavirus crisis. Saudi Arabia had a total of $339 billion in Islamic finance assets as of March 2020, leaving Malaysia in a distant second place with $145 billion. Increasing government Sukuk issuance supported by more lenient entry rules and deepening capital markets could boost foreign investment. Mergers and acquisitions across the region are also accelerating the shift to Islamic finance.
The government of Bangladesh is going to introduce Sukuk in the country, said Prof. Shibli Rubayat Ul Islalm, chairman of Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission. He believes that sukuk, once introduced, will widely contribute to various development-oriented activities of Bangladesh. Prof. Shibli made the remarks while speaking at the closing ceremony of a 'Workshop on Issuance and Management of Sukuk in Bangladesh'. The four-day workshop was jointly organised by the Central Shariah Board for Islamic Banks of Bangladesh (CSBIB) and the International Shariah Research Academy for Islamic Finance (ISRA), Malaysia.
Bitcoin’s blockchain is an open network protocol that can replace today’s internet, and offers benefits specific to the Islamic Finance industry. Bitcoin Association ambassador for Malaysia Masumi Hamahira said Bitcoin’s blockchain offered every benefit today’s Internet does, while making ownership sequences or various assets far more efficient to manage and prove. Hamahira is an Advisor for the Islamic Finance department at Japan’s MUFG Bank. Hamahira said that Bitcoin could assist in the sukuk market by managing settlement in different currencies on one platform, rather than the current variety of platforms used. Proving a record of ownership sequence and helping to combat money-laundering across borders provides a particular appeal to the Islamic Finance industry.
The global sukuk market witnessed record issuances in 2019, recording $ 162 billion, an increase of 31% over 2018. Participants of the fourth session of the virtual webinar series of the World Islamic Economic Summit discussed the Global Islamic Economy Report for 2019/2020. According to the report, the assets of Islamic finance worldwide reached $ 2.5 trillion in 2018. Sukuk constituted 4% of these assets, and in the same year the UAE ranked fourth among the top 10 markets for Islamic finance assets in the world, with a value of $ 238 billion. The webinar session focused on discussing emerging trends in the sukuk market and future outlooks for the sector. The participants agreed that the sukuk market had performed well last year, and moderator Mohiuddin Kronfol indicated that the lack of updated data contributed to complicating the process of issuing sovereign and institutional sukuk.
The value of new sukuk listings on Nasdaq Dubai since the beginning of 2020 until mid-September reached $ 11.4 billion, an increase of 55% over the value of sukuk listed in the same period last year. The total value of the sukuk listed in Dubai (between Nasdaq Dubai and the Dubai Financial Market) currently stands at $ 73.49 billion, making the emirate one of the largest sukuk listing centers in the world. The sukuk issuers on Nasdaq Dubai this year varied between Emirati and foreign countries, including Sharjah Islamic Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Dubai World Ports, GFH (from Bahrain), Dar Al Arkan (from Saudi Arabia), the Indonesian government, and the Islamic Development Bank.
The Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre (DIEDC), in collaboration with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Refinitiv hosted the fourth session of the GIES Virtual Series webinar that examined the opportunities and challenges in the sukuk market. Moderator Tahir Mahmood, Head of Business Development at Nasdaq Dubai, discussed the emerging trends in the sukuk market and examined various outlooks for the sector. During the session, panellists agreed that the sukuk market has done well over the past year. The fifth session of the GIES Virtual Series, titled ‘The New Age of Digital Retail in light of the Pandemic', is scheduled for Tuesday, 13 October at 11am (UAE time).
The world’s first actively managed sharia-compliant exchange traded fund will start trading In London. The Almalia Sanlam Active Sharia Global Equity ETF is the result of a partnership between Almalia, a London-based Islamic finance specialist and Sanlam Investments, the UK arm of the Johannesburg-listed financial services company. Amanie Advisors, an Islamic finance consultancy, will oversee the investment screening process. The new ETF, which will carry an annual total expense ratio of 99 basis points, will also be cross-listed in Germany and Italy in October. The fund will be run by a team led by Pieter Fourie, Sanlam’s global head of equities.
QIIB has launched a card for domestic workers, which provides flexible and easy solutions for both workers and employers, and complies with the standards required and set by various government agencies. The employer can transfer the salary of the domestic worker directly to the card via QIIB mobile banking application or Internet banking. The card is also a secure and certified record of all monthly salary payments for domestic workers, and can be used in all ATMs and points of sale. The cardholder can also use it to pay for utility bills, make online purchases and transfer money to their home country.
Malaysia has over one million SMEs (small and medium enterprises) making up 98% of total businesses. The majority are micro SMEs, of which 21% are owned by women. One industry in which Malaysian SMEs could become a world pioneer is Islamic fintech. Islamic finance is now entrenched in Malaysia, accounting for 32% of financing to customers. Yet, according to the IMF, Islamic fintech is still in its infancy. In Malaysia, the growth of Islamic fintech can impact development in rural areas among Malays, offering this community a unique financial-inclusion opportunity.