IslamicFinance.de

As salamu Alaikum,
Next saturday, May 13, 2023, at 15.00 I present as guest of Muslim Student Association in Zurich (@msazurich) on the 1st chapter of my book and then go into the banking crisis and money creation. The talk is in English.

Physical
???? Samstag, 13. Mai 2023
? 15:00 - 17:00
???? Building KAB, floor G, room 01
????? Kantonsschulstrasse 3, 8001 Zürich

Physical attendance - registration linked at @msazurich and in my link tree in Insta profile. (just confirm lengthy privacy in German).
Talk online accessible without registration: Click on Linktr.ee/islamgeldwohlstand - presentation on bigbluebutton/senfcall similar to zoom - no installation required or instagram @islamgeldwohlstand

My German book "Islam, Geld und Wohlstand - Ein Handbuch über Finanzen und Vorsorge" can be obtained:
Instagram:
DE: @islambooks24
CH: @IslamShop.ch
or any other bookstore or online dealer in German speaking countries - if you are publisher interested for your country, please contact me.

Meine erste Roadshow zum Thema Finanzen für Muslime in Deutschland nach einer Reihe von Vorträgen in der Schweiz - freue mich auf rege Teilnahme und bitte die Info weiterleiten - hier die Orte, Uhrzeit und je nach Standort Möglichkeit zur
Anmeldung:

Buchvortrag Berlin "Islam, Geld und Wohlstand" am 10. Januar 2023 um 19:30 in Berlin
mit anschliessender Gelegenheit zur Buchsignierung:
Wo?
Arresalah e.V. Moschee,
Turmstraße 83, 10551 Berlin

Themen:
Islam, Geld und Wohlstand – das Finanzbuch aus islamischer Sicht: Warum macht das Zinsverbot Sinn? Wie wirken Schulden für Arme und Reiche? Wie geht ein Muslim mit Schulden um? Wird Vermögen positiv oder negativ gesehen? Wie Geld erwerben, bewahren und ausgeben? Was ist Geld, was sind Kryptotoken? Welche Meinungen vertreten Gelehrte zum Hauskauf? Welche Aktien kommen infrage? Sind Versicherungen islamkonform? Wie wird die Sozialabgabe Zakat berechnet? Welche Aspekte gibt es bei Nachlassplanung und Testament? Für Muslime und alle, die offen und interessiert sind.

Podiumsdiskussion am 11.1.2023 um 18.00 Uhr in Berlin in der Katholischen Akademie

Hier die Infos vom Veranstalter:

"Gott und Geld

Dear All,

as salamu alaikum,

as part of my book project I developed a simple tool for Islamic stock screening. What does it do?

- data pull from Google Finance and MarketWatch
- Calculating cash and debt compliance criteria versus 220days average market cap
- Zakat calculation per share for the zakatable asset approach, if held for investment

***Telegram Group for discussion on Islamic stock screening:
https://t.me/islamicstockscreening

***Live Google Sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VJYojBUrftJkAZRTcdbmN4TAsvaC1eas...

***Resources:
https://github.com/IslamicWealthManagement/Googlesheet

The tool is under a GLP-3.0 License and be used and amended privately with no charge. Users are encouraged to verify and improve the tool for mutual sharing. No warranties given. Feedback directly or via Telegram group highly welcomed. Is your market avalaible, or do you desire a screening for your market?

Other Screening tools are:

Idealratings: https://www.idealratings.com/
Halal Investors: https://halalinvestors.com/
Islamicly: https://www.islamicly.com/
Zoya Finance: https://zoya.finance/

Sustainable Development Key Performance Indicators (SD-KPIs) are three particularly material environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators for the expected business development of 68 different sectors.

The copyrighted SD-KPI Standard 2016-2021 was published by SD-M® on behalf of the the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) and with support of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). A Japanese, Chinese and Arabic translation is also available:

https://www.sd-kpi.com/files/SD-KPI_Standard_2016-2021_Arabic.pdf

According to the BaFin Guidance Notice on Dealing with Sustainability Risks, ESG risks should be strategically considered, e.g. by means of SD-KPI Standard 2016-2021. The Guidelines (German) to the Sustainability Code of the German Council for Sustainable Development recommend the SD-KPI Standards for materiality analysis.

The Big Six® are the six most important challenges for sustainable development in 21st century:

climate change
freshwater scarcity and pollution
deforestation and desertification
absolute poverty
loss of biodiversity
population growth and migration

A university has announced the launch of the first Accounting and Islamic Finance undergraduate course in the UK. The BSc (Hons) Accounting and Islamic Finance degree at Birmingham City University will see students study Islamic economics, whilst developing an understanding of 'corporate social responsibility'. Course leader Shaista Mukadam said students on the course will be taught the philosophy around the principles and will be encouraged to find ways to implement them in real-world scenarios. It’s not just a course for Muslims, it’s about an ethical way of doing finance based on the teaching of Islam.

Al Rayan Bank, the UK’s oldest and largest Islamic bank, has announced that more than 20,000 of its customers are now using its digital banking services for their day-to-day banking. According to Dr Samir Alamad, Sharia compliance expert at Al Rayan Bank, Islamic finance institutions have a significant growth opportunity in their hands by making the digital shift, catering not only for Muslim communities but mainstream audiences alike. Their role is vital in reinforcing the UK’s position as a fintech hub and in growing awareness of Islamic finance overall. The Al Rayan Bank Mobile Banking app is available on the App store and Google Play – as well as through its desktop portal, which users can access using the app, through a separate authenticator app or using a hard token device. From 2021, customers will also be able to use the app to validate online purchases made using an Al Rayan Bank debit card.

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.

The People’s Pension identified that pensioners from ethnic minorities are on average £3,350 a year, or 24.4%, worse off than other pensioners – calling this the ‘ethnicity pensions gap’. Furthermore, the Black and Minority Ethnic population is projected to grow by about 50% reaching 21% of the population by 2051 – so this is a growing problem that needs our attention now. Governmental changes to remove the pensions barriers will go some way to help the lower earners, such as removing the earnings trigger for automatic enrolment of £10,000 – but these are yet to be implemented.

The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has teamed up with the Islamic Insurance Association of London on the launch of a new MBA in Islamic Finance. The two-year, part-time graduate degree will focus on commerce and management. Applicants will need at least two years of relevant work experience and a UK honours degree, or equivalent. Presented by the University of Bolton, the course will teach students on the unique issues associated with Islamic products, and help them identify risk elements and mitigation techniques.

A new UK-based Shariah-compliant crowdfunding platform providing business financing to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) launched at the end of June. Qardus is an appointed representative of Share In Ltd. According to founder Hassan Daher, Qardus is a peer-to-peer platform for everyone, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, open to investors seeking to generate superior returns as well as having a social impact. Qardus connects SMEs and investors. The platform offers the unsecured financing for a period of up to two years in the form of commodity murabahah. The minimum investment size is £100 and investors can expect over 10% return per annum but capital is at risk. Looking ahead, Qardus plans to offer more than peer-to-peer lending. It will look to raise £1.5 million by the end of this year and may consider VC funding or equity crowdfunding.

Gatehouse Bank’s Home Purchase Plan (HPP) is the cheapest option available in the home purchase space for a number of the HPP products. The structure is identical in legal form to the Al Rayan HPP. The Gatehouse HPP uses a combination of freehold and leasehold to deliver a diminishing musharakah/ijarah model. Gatehouse buys the freehold title in the house at the closing of the transaction, and it is its name that appears on the title. But the buyer gets an equitable interest in the freehold by way of the contract (Diminishing Musharaka Agreement) and also gets a leasehold alongside Gatehouse. Time passes, the Buyer continues paying rent and buying further equity in the house until eventually he owns 100%.

The recently established UK-based National Waqf Fund (NWF) will start investing in real estate, according to CEO and co-founder Umer Suleman. NWF will be focused on the charity and social aspects of waqf. The three main aims of NWF are to establish a central fund, manage awqaf on behalf of other organisations as well as create a virtual centre of excellence for Islamic endowments. NWF will invest in real estate and through its investment committee decide on how and where to deploy the funds. Suleman noted that the upcoming property portfolio will primarily focus on London, Birmingham and Manchester, without the exclusion of other areas. NWF aims to raise £10 million ($12.37 million) within the next 1 to 2 years. Within the next decade, Suleman hopes NWF will have around £150 million of assets under management.

A digital gold-trading platform compliant with Islamic finance norms is about to get launched in the UK. Minted is a start-up domiciled in London that aims at making gold trading simple, secure and affordable. Minted launched the beta version of its platform in early May and plans to introduce a full-fledged version in mid-June and a mobile app by the end of July. With a total of £1mn in seed funding, of which it already received half from a venture capital investor, Minted plans to expand to Germany and France and, later on, to Turkey, the US, South Asia and Africa.

According to hospital operator NMC Health and its Executive Chairman Faisal Belhoul, getting placed in administration by a UK court order would be the "worst-case scenario" for the company’s future. The threat of coming under administration is a live one after Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank had filed a request with a UK court for NMC to be placed under a joint administration. ADCB – which has an exposure of Dh3.6 billion to NMC and affiliates - filed its request in a UK court because NMC Health is listed on London Stock Exchange. According to Belhoul, international institutional investors are keen to take an exposure in NMC despite its current predicament.

According to Knight Frank, Middle East investors are set to increase commercial real estate investment in London this year. Investors from the region are forecast to spend £4.1 billion ($5.3 billion) in the UK capital this year, up by £100 million compared to 2019. China remains by far the biggest potential investor in London, with £12.7 billion of capital ready to buy assets in 2020, followed by Singapore. Knight Frank’s annual London Report reveals that in 2019 London investment activity fell 15% to £13.9 billion, down from £16.8 billion in 2018, as Brexit uncertainty and a shortage of available assets constrained the number of deals.

Rizq, a UK-based Islamic digital challenger bank is preparing for its launch this summer. Akmal Saleem, the fintech’s co-founder and CEO is positioning Rizq from the Muslim lifestyle perspective, so the new bank wants to solve mainstream banking issues for Muslims in the West. According to Saleem, Muslims in the UK still use conventional current accounts because they do not see a true alternative. Established in late February, Rizq will be both an app and web-based digital challenger bank. The company has applied for a license from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the registration is on track for acceptance by May 29. The digital challenger will offer a current account first and a premium account at a later stage. The company is working with a major card provider and will offer a debit card for both accounts.

The administrators of troubled hospital operator NMC Health have announced a new board of directors. Previous board members, including executive chairman Faisal Belhoul have been removed. The move came after London's High Court on Thursday placed NMC Health into administration, on the application of one of its biggest lenders, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB). Michael Brenden Davis remains as interim chief executive officer and chief operating officer, but does not sit on the company's board.

The crisis surrounding NMC Health widened, as the struggling hospital operator rejected a call to be put into administration and United Arab Emirates’ banks disclosed more than $2 billion of exposure. The next chapter opens Thursday when a U.K. court is scheduled to hear Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC’s bid to place NMC into the hands of administrators. With a market value of $2.4 billion and total debt of $6.6 billion, NMC now faces an investigation by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority.