IslamicFinance.de

The World Bank said the Islamic capital market's (ICM) value proposition has to be very clear to show that its concept is more powerful than the environmental, societal and governance (ESG) investment schemes. World Bank financial sector specialist consultant Dr Mohamed Eskandar Shah said ESG's value proposition seems to be quite straight forward compared to Islamic finance. He noted that between 2007 and 2019, the ICM, measured in global shariah equities, saw a 4.3% growth a year compared to the 10.2% expansion in ESG equities. As such, Islamic finance could become a subset of ESG investing, or eventually people will brand Islamic finance in the context of ESG, rather than Islamic finance having its own identity.

The fast-growing Islamic finance industry can play a significant role in closing the infrastructure gap through public-private partnerships (PPP). According to the World Bank, shari‘ah-compliant assets have grown exponentially in the past two decades, accumulating nearly $1.9 trillion in assets. The Gulf Cooperation Council has the largest share of shari‘ah-compliant assets, at 42% of the global total, followed by Middle East and North Africa with 30% and the rest of Asia at 22%. Islamic banking and Islamic deposits grew faster than their conventional equivalents in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey. Developing countries in Asia will need to invest $26 trillion from 2016 to 2030, or $1.7 trillion per year to eradicate poverty and respond to climate change. The infrastructure needs of Sub-Saharan Africa exceed $93bn annually. Islamic finance instruments like Istisna and Ijarah can be used for large, longer-term financing arrangements, such as financing for power projects, infrastructure and transport equipment.

According to statistics from the World Bank, an estimated two billion adults worldwide do not have access to basic financial services. Realising this fact, the World Bank has partnered with public and private sector institutions and established the Universal Financial Access by 2020 (UFA2020) initiative to promote financial inclusion. As the main aim of the microfinance industry is to alleviate poverty, Islamic microfinance is a branch of that with Islamic financial principles. In Cambodia the Islamic microfinance industry is still in the nascent stage. Recently, the Cambodian government has opened its doors to two Islamic microfinance institutions into Cambodia namely Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) and Yayasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Islam Malaysia (YAPEIM). AIM is currently setting up its branch office in Cambodia while YAPEIM is slated to come in by the first quarter of 2018.

According to The World Bank, less than 20% of Muslims use conventional banking worldwide, in spite of the ever growing number of Islamic financial products. The bank's Vice President and Treasurer, Arunma Oteh, said this in Washington during the World Bank High Level Seminar on Islamic Finance. Ms. Oteh said that the huge financial gap that exist in the Muslim world could not be bridged and the lack of trust of financial service providers was a reason for the disparity. She added that Islamic finance was a tool for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with Islamic investors applying the ethical and quantitative measures in their investment decisions.

The World Bank Group, the Islamic Financial Services Board and the Republic of Turkey are jointly organising a conference on "Realising the Value Proposition of Takaful Industry for a Stable and Inclusive Financial System" on May 30-31, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. The conference aims to provide a platform for global practitioners and stakeholders in Takaful industry. The current state of the industry will be discussed as well as the evolving nature of the related legal and regulatory requirements in various regions.

The Middle East remains the most financially excluded region in the world despite being a middle income region. When the World Bank conducted its first Global Findex survey in 2011, the Middle East had the lowest bank account ownership rate of the six developing regions. In the Middle East only about 14% of adults have an account, virtually unchanged from 2011. The World Bank has made substantial efforts to ensure that SMEs obtain access to finance over the past six years – with large line of credit operations in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco.

he World Bank and Rabobank Foundation are teaming up to strengthen financial cooperatives in rural areas to improve financial services for smallholder farmers and agricultural SMEs. To get access to savings and credit, rural households and farms often establish cooperative financial institutions (CFIs). The idea for intensified cooperation on CFIs is based on the experience with a program in Albania, where Rabobank and the Irish League of Credit Unions Foundation are supporting the consolidations of two local CFI federations.

The Senior FSD Specialist will primarily be responsible for:

Leading the Bank’s financial inclusion work in Indonesia, including through the design, delivery, implementation and monitoring of existing and prospective financial inclusion projects (lending, economic and sector work, technical assistance), including in areas such as microfinance, access to finance for MSMEs and women, micro-insurance, financial literacy and consumer protection, international migration and remittances; Islamic financing.