IslamicFinance.de

Fondée en 2010, Banque Zitouna s’est rapidement développée en peu d’années s’imposant ainsi en tant que banque islamique entièrement évolutive en Tunisie. Le long de ses 10 années d’existence, Banque Zitouna n’a cessé de se réinventer toujours en accord avec ses valeurs de Banque islamique, en créant de la proximité avec ses clients et ses territoires, vecteur principal de sa réussite. En mars 2019, le Groupe Majda Tunisia a racheté les parts de l’Etat dans le capital de la banque. Banque Zitouna envisage également une expansion à l’international notamment en Afrique, au Maghreb et en Europe, outre la mise en place d’un plan de transformation digitale et le développement de nouvelles activités à travers la création de nouvelles filiales.

Al Baraka Bank Tunisia recently announced its financial results for the year 2019. The results revealed that the bank has moved forward with a net income that increased by 256% and total assets by 20% compared to the end of 2018. The Bank’s financial statements for the year 2019 show that the total income amounted to 133 million Tunisian dinars ($48 million), up 29% compared to the same period last year. After deducting all operating expenses, net operating income went up 54% to 30 million Tunisian dinars (US$11 million). The Bank also increased its shareholders’ equity by 9% to 174 million Tunisian Dinars (USD 62 million) at the end of December 2019.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan will head the Kingdom's delegation to the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Islamic Development Bank between April 4-5 in Tunis. The Saudi delegation will include Dr. Ahmad Al-Khulaifi, Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Dr. Hamad Al-Bazie, Vice Minister of Finance, Eng. Yousef Al-Bassam, Vice President and Managing Director of the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD). The IDB annual meeting's agenda will comprise of discussion sessions about the 2017 IDB activities report, IDB's institutions annual report and the establishment of the Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development (ISFD). The ISFD aims to alleviate poverty, develop capacity, and eradicate illiteracy, diseases and epidemics in member countries via funding various productive, social and service projects and programs.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) aims to improve women’s access to infrastructure that will offer economic opportunities through Islamic microfinance. IDB president Bandar Hajjar was speaking at the "Partnerships for Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment" session at the 43rd annual IDB meeting in Tunis. He said the empowerment of women was at the core of the Bank’s development strategy. He announced that to achieve this, the bank would launch a new initiative called "SheCan". He also stressed the bank continued its regular operations to empower women in priority sectors, such as energy, education, transport, health and Islamic finance. Representatives of 57 member states, senior government officials and ministers of finance, economy, planning and international development are attending the five-day meeting in Tunis.

The annual meeting of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group will be held in the first week of April in the Tunisian capital, Tunis. Fifty-seven ministers of economy and finance of member countries and about one thousand experts, economists and financiers will attend the meeting, which takes place between April 1 and April 5. There will also be a signing ceremony of financial partnership agreements between the IDB Group and some member states, including Tunisia. The IDB Group formally opened in 1975 and currently has 57 member states.

The sale of Zitouna bank and Takaful continues and is expected to end in July 2018, by which time we should know the identity of the final buyer. The bank had posted a net banking income of 101.748 MD, an operating profit of 19.411 MD and a net profit of 12.630 MD at the end of the 2016. For its part, the Zitouna Takaful posted a net profit of 2.490 MD in the same year. The company will have more than doubled its result compared to 1.054 MD in 2015. This, in connection with the high level of imports which have been on an upward trend in recent years, reaching 12.8 billion dinars in 2017.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has decided to sell its 21% share in Zitouna Bank’s capital. The origin of this decision is supposedly a disagreement of specifications. The withdrawal could benefit Triki Group, which could disburse 80-90 million Tunisian dinars for this acquisition. IDB entered in Zitouna Bank’s capital in 2014, with TND37.5 million. Since its inception in 2009, Zitouna Bank has become a leading Islamic financial instituion in the local market.

The sale of Zitouna Bank, which was launched on December 5 by state holding company Al Karama, could be quickly scuttled by the investment banks and other groups which had been hoping to get involved in this major operation.

Even though its Tunis Financial Harbour (TFH) mega-project has barely got off the ground, Bahrain's Gulf Finance House (GFH) is already looking to acquire adjacent land.

The government of Tunisia is preparing its first ever issuance of a sukuk with the Tunisian stock exchange, Bourse de Tunis and Nasdaq Dubai. Preparation work will consider commercial, legal and regulatory issues, including sharia-compliance aspects. This January finance minister Lamia Zribi said that Tunisia needs about $2.85 billion in external funding in 2017 and plans to issue a sukuk of $500 million to cover its budget deficit. Then in February the North African country issued a €850 million bond with a seven-year maturity.

The Bahraini Gulf Finance House (GFH) would seek to get rid of its Tunisian project, the Tunis Financial Harbor. The project was to be one of the largest Bahraini investments in Tunisia, which would be worth 7.5 billion USD. Tunis Financial Harbor was initially designed to make Tunisia a regional financial hub, but eventually turned into a simple real estate program. GFH is currently seeking to pass the hand and to pass the project on to another investor. The cause would be the financial difficulties of the Bahraini group.

The Swiss start-up Monetas claims a new mobile phone payment technology will transform people’s lives in Africa. The Tunisian National Post invited the Swiss firm to pilot its technology in October in conjunction with local firm DigitUs. Once all integrations with the existing e-dinar system are finalised, the Monetas system will first target retailers before reaching out to the general population. Monetas has big plans for expansion, having started exploratory talks with 12 other African nations with a combined population of 300 million. It is also developing savings accounts and is looking into other financial services, such as micro credits.

Governor of Ariana, Mehdi Zaoui announced the start of work on the construction of the Tunis Financial Harbour. Zaoui said they finished the dispute regarding the expropriation for public use under habitat. The Tunis Financial Harbour, considered as a mega project developed by the Gulf Finance House in the northern suburbs near Raoued, extends over 523 hectares with a total investment of USD 5 billion.

The progress rate of the second phase of the social housing project "Omar Al Mukhtar" in Sidi Hassine Sijoumi (capital western suburbs) is now 65% and the project will be completed by late August 2016. The handover of keys is expected before the end of 2016, noted the Minister of Public Works, Housing and Spatial Planning Mohamed Salah Arfaoui, at a visit Tuesday to the site of the project along with Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani. The project with an estimated cost of nearly 54 million dinars financed by Qatar through a donation (40%) and a free-interest loan (60%) will help build 810 social residential units.

Tunisian Islamic bank Zitouna was the first to succeed in placing on the national financial market in December 2015 the Islamic bonds sukuk for a value of 22.5 million euros. The result exceeded expectations - set at 20 million euros - the management of Zitouna said. at a Forum on Islamic finance held at Kram in Tunis. The Forum was attended by several protagonists of the Tunisian economic and financial scenario like central bank governor, Chedly Ayari, the president of Cmf, Salah Sayel and former finance minister, Jalloul Ayed. Zitouna bank, on behalf of its president Ezzedine Khoja, has announced it is launching a new business plan in 2016-2020 with the objective of becoming the bank of reference in Tunisia and a leading Islamic bank in Africa.

President Beji Caid Essebsi and the Bahrain Prime Minister agreed to restart the mega project Tunis Financial Harbor, said official spokesman for the Presidency of the Republic, Moez Sinaoui. This mega project is financed by the Gulf Finance House, an Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain, with a budget of 7.5 billion dinars. It will set up the first financial center for offshore banking institutions in North Africa. The Financial Harbor will house a set of shopping centers and residential units and recreation spaces: marina, golf courses.

The ‘social contract’ is an idea that dates back to the ancient Greeks, and refers to the implicit agreement among members of a society that defines their relationship with each other and the state. That relationship holds the key to unravelling the puzzle of the ‘Arab Spring.’

To development economists, the uprisings that started in Tunisia and spread to several countries in the Arab world in 2010-11 came as somewhat of a surprise. For the previous decade, almost all the indicators of economic well-being were strong and improving. GDP growth was substantial, at about 5 percent a year. Extreme poverty (people living on $1.25 a day) was low and declining. Conventional measures of inequality, such as the Gini coefficient, were lower than in other middle-income countries, and in some cases declining. In Egypt and Tunisia, the per-capita income of the bottom 40 percent was growing faster than the average. In terms of human development, the Middle East and North Africa region recorded the fastest decline in child mortality rates and the steepest increase in school attainment.

Financial inclusion is one of many the areas that caught the new public authorities’ attention in Tunisia. A decree-law was passed in November 2011 that authorized the establishment of credit institutions dedicated to low-income people. It also created a modern regulatory agency, the microfinance supervisory authority. Beyond micro-lending, the Ministry of Finance now aims at modernizing the entire financial sector in Tunisia by 2020. Such a plan is timely and provides hope for further financial deepening. In this regard, a recent snapshot on financial inclusion completed by CGAP and the World Bank provides insights.

Tunisian firms are preparing to issue Islamic bonds as the government finalises rules covering the sector, creating a new funding option for companies in an economy buffeted by labour unrest and militant attacks. Best Lease aims to raise up to 30 million dinars ($15.6 million) to finance its growth, with Banque Zitouna and El Wifack Leasing also considering sukuk issues. State-owned electricity and water utilities may follow suit, while national carrier Tunisair could tap the market later after clearing legislative hurdles. The government is also preparing to issue its first sovereign sukuk this year. Meanwhile, the IDB is helping to establish an Islamic microfinance institution in Tunisia.

The World Social Forum continues to be the pivotal global venue for left and progressive forces to advance struggles and create internationalist alliances to make another world possible. Tunisia, which provided the spark for the Arab Spring, hosted its second WSF from 24-28 March in its capital Tunis. Tunisia has unfortunately seen an increment in terrorist attacks and, according to estimates, is the largest source of recruits to the Islamic State (IS). Tunisia’s rate of unemployment is at its highest since the 2011 revolution with a huge percentage being educated youth.