IslamicFinance.de

United Arab Emirates energy firm Dana Gas received a new injunction from the English High Court restricting its ability to pay dividends or increase its debt. Sukuk holders have been trying to force the company to redeem the sukuk since last year. Dana said in late March that it would seek shareholder approval on April 11 to pay a cash dividend for 2017. The dividend would be worth 5% of capital or about 349 million dirhams (67.4 million pounds). But the English High Court order blocked Dana from making dividend payments unless it also sets aside money to redeem the sukuk. It also prohibited Dana from increasing its debt by more than $25 million.

The Bank of England has joined the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), the second Western regulator to do so after Luxembourg. The BoE joins as an associate member, the 65th regulatory body to join the Kuala Lumpur-based body, bringing total membership to 189, the IFSB said in a statement. The move comes at a key time for Britain’s domestic Islamic banks, as the BoE works to grow the number of sharia-compliant assets they can use in their liquidity buffers, with progress expected by the turn of the year. The IFSB has also admitted the central bank of Kyrgyzstan and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan as observer members.

Iran may be about to restore banking links with the rest of the world after years of separation, but the process won’t be easy as its Islamic financial system has evolved in ways that will complicate ties with foreign banks. Smothered in bad debt and shut out of the global system by sanctions, Iranian banks badly need to resume business with foreign lenders, for whom this would be a huge opportunity. Iran’s Islamic banking assets totalled 17,344 trillion riyals as of March 2014, or $523 billion at the free market exchange rate. But the Iranian banks’ shaky finances and close ties with their government will increase the risks of dealing with them. And during their years of isolation, they have developed a version of Islamic finance that is in some ways markedly different from that practiced in other Muslim-majority states.

Standard Chartered Plc will start offering Islamic banking in Kenya as a springboard into the rest of Africa, Wasim Saifi, its global head of Islamic consumer banking said. Moreover, it may expand services in Indonesia. He said the bank would offer the services through its Islamic banking brand, Standard Chartered Saadiq, targeting the country’s official Muslim population of 4 million people, as well as non-Muslims. The new products will first be launched in Kenya, then in other countries in east Africa and west Africa, as well as further afield. Especially Indonesia is interesting to the bank because Islamic finance is set to triple or quadruple in the next five-ten years in the country. Standard Chartered currently offers Islamic banking in Indonesia through associate Bank Permata