Kuwait Finance House (KFH), the country’s second biggest lender by assets, has established a $3 billion Islamic bonds programme that would mark its largest foray into the market for sukuk. KFH will issue the certificates via a special purpose vehicle incorporated in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), a state-owned free zone, according to the […]
Islamic banks stand to benefit greatly from their new-found ability to incorporate Shari’ah-compliant financing in securitisations By Staff Writer, CPI Financial Shari’ah-compliant financing will open up markets beyond their core Islamic base and offers a less expensive funding option, according to Moody’s Investors Service. “Raising debt secured on mortgages provides Islamic banks with a cheaper […]
THE Indonesia Stock Exchange greeted its latest listing on May 9th: that of BRIsyariah, the Islamic arm of state-controlled Bank Rakyat Indonesia, the country’s biggest bank by assets. The initial public offering (IPO) of 27% of BRIsyariah’s equity raised around 1.3trn rupiah ($92m). Islam outlaws the payment of interest, the basis of conventional banking. Yet […]
May (Reuters) – The Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) has issued its first standard covering wakala, or investment agency contracts, in a bid to harmonise practices for the widely used structure. The guidance issued late on Wednesday from Bahrain-based AAOIFI, one of the main standard-setting bodies in Islamic finance, aims to […]
Today, we are witnessing an emergent Islamic finance industry with global assets of over $2 trillion and growing at around 10 per cent per annum, taking hold in leading international markets. There is also a thriving Islamic capital market with issuances of Shariah-compliant asset-based securities (Sukuk) reaching to $98 billion in 2017. With these recent […]
As the global economy experiences its first green shoots, one cannot forget the economic trauma precipitated by the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, one of the worst in living memory. Following the crisis, many economists revisited the question of whether the seeds of the recurrent crises lie in systemic flaws in the financial system. A […]
(Reuters) – Afghanistan’s central bank has granted a license to the Islamic Bank of Afghanistan (IBA), the first lender in the country to apply the interest-free principles of Islamic finance in all its operations, a senior bank official told Reuters. The IBA was previously known as Bakhtar Bank and operated under a conventional banking license […]
The Islamic banking and finance industry has been growing at a rapid rate over the last decade – around twice the pace of its conventional counterpart – with the number and geographic reach of these institutions increasing exponentially. The industry’s assets stood at $2trn in 2015 and are expected to top $3.5trn by 2021 according […]
The success and continuous growth of any industry depends on how fast it can develop the ecosystem required to make it more inclusive and accessible The Islamic finance ecosystem includes appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks that recognise an intrinsic approach, allowing it to operate efficiently in a diversified financial system. In addition, it includes adequate […]
Morocco is finally firming up plans to issue its first sukuk. More than a year after granting licenses to five local banks to set up Islamic finance affiliates in partnerships with majors such as Qatar International Islamic Bank and Dallah al-Baraka, the North African nation says it is now closing in on plans to […]
