IslamicFinance.de

Although there are some Islamic venture capital (VC) associations, VC funds and VC Banks, there's a lack of VC conferences, articles and high profile funds and investments in information, technology and communication or bio-technology. An opportunity exists for Islamic banks to deploy part of excessive proprietary risk capital to venture capital in financing some of the major concerns of the región, e.g. desert farming or alternative energy. Islamic finance must think about financing ventures beyond simple returns to depositors and shareholders, to include important local healthcare and the stewardship of the environment. In this manner, it can actually lead conventional finance in the region for invention and innovation.

The report on Social Responsibility Trends at Islamic Financial Institutions presents the results of an extensive survey on Social Responsibility at Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) carried out during summer and fall of 2009 by DinarStandard and Dar Al Istithmar with the support of the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI).

Some key findings of the survey were:

Clients: 100% of respondents answered yes to having a policy to screen prospective clients which is actively implemented. Similarly 97% have an organizational policy that deals with client responsibly.

Employees: 83% of respondents’ state having policies that provide equal opportunity to all their employees, 93% have policies that ensures merit-based salary and promotion, and 86% having policies that specifically prohibits any kind of discrimination. However, when it comes to having policy to monitor employees from different backgrounds and gender, the response was mix with only 52% admitting to having such a monitoring policy and 48% not having any such policy.