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According to Moody’s Investors Service, the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector’s credit strengths lie within its robust liquidity buffer and high quality treasury portfolio. While ICD remained lossmaking in 2019, the size of the losses narrowed significantly, and capital adequacy was supported by ongoing payments from shareholders under the second general capital increase. Moody’s analyst Thaddeus Best expects that the ICD will temper its balance sheet expansion in order to preserve capital. It is anticipated that the bank’s increased focus on term lending operations will help ease credit risk over the coming years.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, concentration on retail financing and other structural features will help Islamic banks safeguard against a deterioration in asset quality and profitability. Islamic banks have sufficient loss buffers against financial stress, with their funding and liquidity remaining stable. The seven largest Islamic banks in Malaysia, five of which are subsidiaries of domestic banking groups with conventional operations, have a heavy concentration on retail financing, which is less vulnerable to an economic downturn. In addition, Malaysian banks generally have prudent underwriting practices for retail financing, which adds to their asset quality.

Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service expects Indonesia’s sukuk issuance to increase to US$27 billion this year from $16 billion last year. Lead analyst Thaddeus Best said on Tuesday that he expected Indonesia’s sukuk issuance to increase by about 68.75% as the government unveiled a Rp 695.2 trillion (US$47.3 billion) stimulus package to fight the pandemic. To help fund the package, the government is planning to raise Rp 900.4 trillion in the second half of this year to cover for a widening budget deficit of 6.34% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year. The option-adjusted spread of Indonesia’s US dollar-denominated government sukuk had fallen to almost 150 basis points (bps) as of July compared to its highest spread of 400 bps in March.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, Islamic finance is poised to expand in 2020 and beyond, helped by growing use of Shariah-compliant products in the GCC region and Malaysia. Moody's vice president Nitish Bhojnagarwala expects sukuk issuance to remain stable at around $180 billion (Dh661bn) this year, and the takaful insurance market will see steady growth as insurance premiums pick up in newly-penetrated markets. However, downside risks are rising because of the coronavirus outbreak. Mergers between Islamic and conventional banks in the GCC will drive one-off increases in assets, as they did in 2019. Saudi Arabia will remain the world's largest Islamic banking market, while the sector will continue to expand rapidly in Malaysia.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, Africa’s Islamic banks will continue to perform well and African sukuk issuance will keep expanding steadily. In October and December last year, the governments of Morocco and Nigeria issued $105 million and $327 million of sukuk. In Morocco it was an inaugural issuance and the transaction was 3.6 times oversubscribed. According to the rating agency, structural constraints that have prevented sukuk markets from developing still remain. These constraints include the legislative complexity and time associated with sukuk issuance, especially for new issuers, and the need to identify physical collateral to support the sukuk structure. Moody’s expects robust issuance in African sukuks over the next 18 months. Egypt, Algeria and Sudan have recently expressed interest in issuing sukuk.

The asset management industry in the Arabian Gulf is set to grow, as regional governments overhaul their hydrocarbon-dependent economies and ease regulations. According to Moody’s Investors Service, investment managers in the six-member economic bloc of the GCC had $260 billion (Dh954bn) of assets under management at the end of last year. The Gulf states are trying to overhaul their economies and cut their dependence on oil. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are pursuing their own economic reforms to develop alternative lines of revenue. Both countries have introduced laws to broaden their appeal to foreign investors. Moody’s expects global market leaders to expand their presence in the Saudi Arabia due to a relaxation of foreign ownership limits coupled with more transparent regulations.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, the GCC region's sukuk issuance fell by 32% to reach $16.7 billion in the first half of 2018. This contributed to a reduction in the Gulf’s overall share of the global sukuk issuance to less than a third (30%) compared with 39% a year earlier. The GCC also dragged down total global issuance which fell by 12% to reach $55 billion in the first six months of the year. Recovery in the oil price has reduced pressure on Gulf government’s budget deficits and helped lower their borrowing requirements. While Islamic bonds have fallen out of favour in the Gulf, their appeal remains strong in Malaysia. The South-East Asian country increased its issuance by 9% in the first half of the year to reach $22.4 billion, making it the world’s leading Sukuk issuer.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, sukuk issuance grew 17% in 2017 to reach US$100 billion, underpinned by large sovereign transactions from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. At the same time, new issuers came into the market last year, including some corporates from China and France. The sukuk market activity is also supported by specialized multilateral entities, such as quasi-sovereigns, central banks and supranationals, including the Islamic Development Bank, the International Liquidity Management Corporation and many others.

Fitch Ratings has assigned Mazoon Electricity Company's Sukuk an expected rating of 'BBB'. The expected rating is in line with Mazoon Electricity’s Issuer Default Rating (IDR) of 'BBB', which has a negative outlook. Mazoon Assets Company’s is the issuer of the certificates and trustee and is a closed joint stock company in accordance with the laws of the Sultanate. The trustee has been incorporated solely for the purpose of participating in the transactions contemplated by the transaction documents. Earlier, Moody’s Investors Service assigned a Baa2 rating to Mazoon’s Sukuk certificates. The outlook on all ratings is negative.

Moody’s Investors Service has upgraded Dubai Islamic Bank’s (DIB) local and foreign currency long-term issuer ratings to A3 from Baa1. The outlook for the bank has been changed from positive to stable. Moody's also upgraded the bank’s baseline credit assessment (BCA), adjusted BCA as well as the long and short-term counterparty risk assessment. The primary driver for the BCA upgrade is the bank’s significant improvement in its asset quality and provisioning coverage. The upgrade also captures DIB’s improving profitability in recent years, with return on assets (ROA) improving to 2.0% for 2016. DIB said that its net income rose 13.8% in the second quarter to Dh1.1 billion compared with Dh929 million in the same period last year. Going forward, the rating agency expects that the bank’s net profitability may face modest pressure, due to increased funding costs, but that it will remain above the domestic average and global median.

In #Malaysia Islamic investment accounts (IA) have grown at a strong pace since they were introduced in 2015. Bank Negara’s latest monthly banking statistics show that IAs have since grown to RM74.2 billion as at February this year, accounting for 13% of total liabilities within the Islamic banking system. According to Simon Chen, senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, by 2020 IAs will probably account for some 16% of the Islamic banking system’s total liabilities. An important feature of IAs is the sharing of risk between the bank and the account holder. For an investor, IAs are attractive because they offer much higher returns than a deposit account. But, unlike a deposit account, the principal amount in an IA is not guaranteed by Perbadanan Insurans Deposit Malaysia. According to Chen, a key issue that remains is whether the loss-sharing mechanism in IAs will be honoured by banks in case of actual losses. A significant loss to test the resilience of this regime has yet to occur.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, Oman and Indonesia have made the most progress this year in terms of taking initiatives to advance Islamic finance. According to Khalid Howladar, global head of Islamic finance at Moody’s, Oman’s strategy has already yielded substantive results and new sukuk regulations have been published. Over three years Oman’s Islamic banking sector has gone from zero to an agregate of around 10% of the banking system’s financing assets as of June 2016. Indonesia has several inititives to accelerate growth. Also, the country launched a 10-year Islamic finance master plan that consists of action plans and interventions covering key aspects. Meanwhile, markets that seem to have stalled this year are the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, growth prospects for the Islamic banking are still strong despite subdued sukuk issuance predicted for 2016. Growth in the Islamic banking sector continues to broadly outpace that of conventional banks in most systems in which Islamic banks have been established. The current size of the Islamic finance market has been estimated to range from $1.66 trillion to $2.1 trillion with expectations of market size to be $3.4 trillion by end of 2018. According to the Moody's report, Islamic banking sector growth is driven by strong retail demand and proactive government legislation for the industry. There is potential for further growth, especially in countries in which the penetration of Islamic banking assets remains relatively low, at between 5% and 10% of Islamic financing assets.

The proposed merger between CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, RHB Capital Bhd (RHBCap) and Malaysia Building Society Bhd (MBSB) would be credit negative for CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Moody’s vice-president Eugene Tarzimanov noted that the merger would see CIMB Islamic Bank’s asset size triple as a result of acquiring RHB Bank’s and MBSB’s Islamic operations.

The reason for the fact that rate of return on Islamic Development Bank’s Shariah-compliant bonds sold last month was triple that of Gulf sukuk is that investors looking to own the highest rated debt sold this year.
Islamic Development is rated AAA, the highest investment grade, at Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

Because of their losses and after political unrest in the Arabian Gulf nation, Moody’s Investors Service cut off Bahrain Islamic Bank's credit ratings.
Moody's statement was that the decision "reflects a material weakening in the institution’s stand-alone financial profile, as shown in the significant losses it posted in the last two years and the erosion of its capital base in the absence of new capital injections".

Moody’s Investors Service put the E+ bank financial strength rating (BFSR), mapping to B1 on the long-term rating scale, of Dubai Bank (DB) on review with direction uncertain.
The review comes after the Government of Dubai's announcement on 16 May 2010 that it plans to inject capital into Dubai Bank, protect the interest of all depositors and ensure that Dubai Bank's operations remain uninterrupted.

Islamic bonds, led by securities in the Arabian Gulf, underperformed emerging-market debt in February as spreading unrest across the Middle East caused the biggest monthly rise in yields since May.
Investors are shunning Middle East assets as protests expanded to Oman, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya, holder of the largest proven oil reserves in Africa. Moody’s Investors Service and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank say Islamic bonds aren’t likely to recover unless demonstrations that have toppled Tunisia’s and Egypt’s rulers and killed hundreds end soon.

Nakheel PJSC’s plan to offer Islamic bonds to creditors may revive sukuk trading in the Persian Gulf after new sales fell to a five-year low, according to Moody’s Investors Service and Mashreq Capital DIFC Ltd. Thomas Barry said that contractors are likely to sell Nakheel’s sukuk to pay bills. Thomas Barry is chief executive officer of Arabtec Construction LLC. In April, the company said its trade creditors would be offered 100 percent recovery of their claims -- 40 percent through a cash payment and 60 percent in the form of a tradable sukuk. More than 80 percent of Nakheel’s contractors have agreed. Abdul Kadir Hussain said sukuk sales from the region are likely to pick up in the fourth quarter. Nakheel and its parent Dubai World, one of the emirate’s three main holding companies, are renegotiating debt terms after the deepest financial crisis since the 1930s roiled Dubai’s real-estate market and left companies unable to raise financing. Property prices have fallen more than 50 percent in the city as banks cut mortgage lending, according to estimates from Colliers International.