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The emirate of Sharjah is targeting a five-year sukuk offering and could launch a transaction as early as this week, a document from lead arrangers showed on Tuesday. The sovereign finished roadshows on Monday in London, following investor meetings in the Middle East and Asia last week, and was now in the process of receiving feedback from the market, the document added. The emirate mandated Bank Of Sharjah, Barclays, Commerzbank, Dubai Islamic Bank, HSBC and Sharjah Islamic Bank to arrange the meetings and the possible transaction. Sharjah was reported to be planning to raise funds through a dollar-denominated sukuk of benchmark size, in what could be the first sovereign Islamic bond issuance from the region this year.

Khazanah Nasional Berhad has mandated Barclays, CIMB, Morgan Stanley and UBS to arrange a series of investor meetings for a US dollar sukuk offering. The roadshow will take place in Dubai on Sunday, Hong Kong on Monday, Singapore on Tuesday and London on Wednesday. The Reg S offering will be unrated and issued off the Multi-currency Islamic Securities Issuance Programme established by Danga Capital Berhad. Danga Capital is a special purpose financing vehicle initiated by Khazanah, the sovereign wealth fund of the government of Malaysia.

The emirate of Sharjah has picked six banks to arrange investor meetings starting next week ahead of a potential dollar-denominated sukuk issue, a document from lead arrangers showed on Wednesday. The sovereign has mandated Bank Of Sharjah, Barclays, Commerzbank, Dubai Islamic Bank, HSBC and Sharjah Islamic Bank to arrange the transaction. Investor meetings will be held starting Sunday in the Middle East, Asia and the United Kingdom and a deal will follow subject to market conditions, the document added.

Big-time criminals engaging in major financial crimes that effectively involve the theft of billions of dollars from the public aren’t being prosecuted. Today we learned of yet another huge settlement by five of the largest banks operating in our country. The list includes JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland UBS. Each of these banks admitted to engaging in criminal activity. But banks don’t commit crimes. People working for banks commit crime. And when people working for banks commit crime, it’s the responsibility of our Justice Department to indict them.

Having completed the acquisition of Barclays retail banking division in the UAE on September 1st, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank has seen little change in its market growth. The $177 million deal will give ADIB access to Barclays’ 110,000 customers in the Emirates, as well as 145 staff members that will continue to work from existing branches. Having been hit with a $453m fine for its involvement in the Libor interest-rigging scandal back in 2012, Barclays has been stripping assets and jobs in an effort to boost profits. As such, the ADIB deal is, in fact, overshadowed by a far larger sale, as Barclays announced the sale of its Spanish retail, wealth management and corporate banking business for $1.04 billion to CaixaBank.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC (ADIB), which bought the local retail assets of Barclays Plc (BARC) last month, is weighing whether to change its name as it targets more non-Muslim customers beyond its home market. The lender may change to Abu Dhabi International Bank outside the nation to lure customers drawn to ethical banking, Tirad Mahmoud, chief executive officer of ADIB, said. This could help capture a loan market that’s about 200-times the size of Shariah lending. With 60 percent of U.A.E. residents already holding bank accounts, faster growth opportunities for ADIB may need to come from international markets. The lender’s purchase of the Barclays asset was a rare chance to secure 110,000 new customers at home.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC (ADIB) is seeking to bring a boom in Shariah-compliant lending to the expatriate population in the UAE. ADIB agreed to buy the conventional retail assets of Barclays Plc (BARC) in the United Arab Emirates for 650 million dirhams ($177 million). The deal is the second of its kind for ADIB, which bought a stake in Egypt’s National Bank of Development in 2007. ADIB has been a corporate-focused bank so having a larger retail footprint will be positive for balancing it’s loan book. Barclays’s U.A.E. customers will notice a difference during the transition, even while they won’t experience any disruption.

Islamic investment firm Arcapita is the first Gulf company to emerge from U.S. bankruptcy under Chapter 11 rules. Arcapita’s plan is to transfer its assets into a new holding company which will dispose of them over time to pay off creditors and gradually wind-down the firm. Arcapita’s creditors include Barclays, CIMB, Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered and the Central Bank of Bahrain – its largest creditor with $255.1 million owed.

Through the Banking on Change Partnership, CARE, Plan, and Barclays have developed new savings-led products based on a link between informal savings groups and Barclays bank branches. To date, Banking on Change has developed three different types of savings accounts and an overdraft facility. The Uwezo savings product in Kenya is a good example of a product designed with client needs in mind. By allowing group accounts, Barclays has lowered its transaction costs. Currently with the Uwezo account, withdrawals and deposits are free, there is no maintenance fee, and the opening balance requirement is 2,000 Kenyan Shillings (around US$23). But to truly scale up a product, you need an appropriate delivery channel to reach an existing large-scale market. For formal financial providers to engage in this area, more research is needed on product development.

This week, new report by Barclays and the Economist Social Intelligence Unit was issued. It focuses on financial inclusion worldwide and on the corresponding factors that influence it. Reasons for financial exclusion deriving from the emographic, geographic, political, and cultural area are discussed. Developing nations as well as developed ones are examined in terms of financial inclusion.

The Islamic financial market has boomed over the last decade and is more than ever at the top of the agenda for sustainable growth and development. The world's most actively traded Islamic finance product is the Sukuk, which is becoming more and more accepted in non-Muslim countries.

See more under: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/391214/20121004/iqbal-sacranie-islamic...

Barclays and Absa maintain their interest in Africa as a target for Islamic insurance. There are plans to introduce the Takaful offering to the African continent. With a Muslim population of over 500 million, Africa represents a very good market perspective. The experience of Barclays and Absa in Africa shall be used in order to provide financial products that are suitable for each country.

More on: http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/absa-africa-target-for-islamic-i...

Barclays and Absa keep their focus on Africa and plan to accept the group’s Islamic Insurance offering - Takaful. Due to the huge number of Muslim population in the continent - over 500 million people - there are excellent market opportunities for Islamic finance and, in particular, for Absa.

A report shows that at least seven renminbi funds for international investors have been launched in the past year.
The funds are adressed to at non-mainland Chinese wishing to add renminbi-denominated bonds to their portfolios and contain products launched by AllianceBernstein, Barclays, BEA Union Investment, Guinness Atkinson and Bosera.
Renmibi funds are still trusted, as the currency remains a better bet than many other investment choices.

Reuters reported on 7 January that the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority (DMCC) and Shariah Capital launched an index tracking the performance of Islamic hedge funds investing in commodities.The index performance will be calculated and reported by Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO). The index is based on four hedge funds, part of the DSAM Kauthar Commodity Fund and investing in gold, energy, natural resources and mining. Each fund has received start capital of $50 million from the DMCC.