National Bank for Development (NBD) and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank launched "5 years Sukuk plus". This term means an Islamic Shari'a compliant medium term saving product in Egyptian pound. It will give customers annual profit posted on monthly basis with expected profit rate ranging between 9% and 9.25%.
The minimum value of "5 years Sukuk plus" is EGP1000 and multiples. The Sukuk profit is posted on the customer's account on the first day of each month.
After the derangement of President Hosni Mubarak, chances begin to come along for Egypt to become a new hub for the booming Islamic finance.
Although Egypt is considered the birthplace of Islamic finance, its growth has lagged due to past corruption scandals.
Beltone Financial, an Egyptian investment bank with more than 20 billion Egyptian pounds in assets under management, expects its shares to begin trading next month after completion of a share-transfer plan.
Shareholders are entitled to expect such a step, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Aladdin Saba said in an interview in Cairo yesterday.
Beltone had delayed the move while it was in talks to merge with Pioneers Holding, a securities firm. The two companies abandoned the transaction in July, saying they had failed to reach agreement on strategy. Beltone is listed on the Egyptian Exchange, though its shares don’t trade because they are held by a limited number of investors.
Egypt’s benchmark EGX30 stock index has gained 10 percent this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Beltone may receive a license as an exchange-traded fund before the end of the year, Khaled Seyam, the chairman of the Egyptian Exchange, said in September. The funds, known as ETFs, trade like stocks and allow investors to track indexes and make bets on whether they will rise or fall.