Islamic Finance News | April 2017

Source: Mondaq, UK

• Offshore centres are poised to benefit from the enormous growth forecast in Islamic finance over the next few years, says Ogier's Head of Banking and Finance in Asia. The combination of increasing appetite for Islamic finance products, new variations on existing products and an increased interest in the role of offshore centres in Islamic finance point to a developing ....

Source: Gulf Times, Qatar

• While a number of post-Soviet states in Central Asia have already opened their finance industry to Islamic banking, Russia so far has been a bit of a laggard to do so. However, the situation is changing now with the number of Russian Muslims growing and ever more companies opening up to the halal industry for which investments have been sizeably increasing in the recent ....

Source: Gulf Times, Qatar

• Islamic finance continues to take the centre stage at global financial institutions. In early February, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) ....

Source: Straits Times, USA

• WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - The International Monetary Fund plans to formally include Islamic finance into its surveillance framework, a nod to the fast-growing sector but noting risks posed by complex hybrid products that replicate conventional ....

Source: Impact Alpha, USA

• Financial institutions rooted in Islamic principles an under-tapped resource for the $3 to $5 trillion per year needed to achieve “shared prosperity” and the U.N.’s 2030 global goals, according to the World Bank and Islamic Development Bank Group ....

Source: IslamicFinance, UK

• In recent decades, policy makers—including multilateral development organizations such as the World Bank Group—have often applied a “trickle-down” approach to reduce levels of absolute poverty. This approach asserts that higher productivity and industrial advancement lead to higher gross domestic product (GDP) growth in ....

Source: Zawya, UAE

• In more recent times, we have also seen the UK Government issuing an Islamic bond in 2014. A Sukuk issue valued at GBP 200 million maturing on 22 July 2019, was sold to investors. This was the world’s first sovereign Sukuk issued by a non-Islamic country and orders were already totalling around GBP 2.3 billion. In 2015, the UK also guaranteed, again for the first time, a Sukuk bond issued by Emirates Airlines. The guarantee was for a 10-year $913m ....

Source: Reuters, UK

• A global body for Islamic finance has issued a draft standard on centralized sharia boards, aiming to improve corporate governance in the industry and increase the consumer appeal of sharia-compliant financial products. The proposed rules come at a time when Islamic banks are trying to widen their appeal to consumers in core markets of the Middle East and Southeast Asia ....

Source: EuroMoney, UK

• Malaysia leads the world in nearly all Islamic finance metrics: 54% of global sukuk outstanding; 314 Islamic investment funds (more than anywhere else) worth RM100.6 billion ($22.7 billion) at the end of 2015; and an Islamic capital market that has tripled in size since 2005, accounting for 60.1% of the total Malaysian capital market ....

Source: Pak Observer, Pakistan

• There are 109 institutions that provide Islamic finance education in Europe, 63 percent of them in the UK. Britain issued its first Islamic bond (sukuk) worth £200 million (over $250 million), according to a statement by the Treasury published on the government’s website in ....

Source: Citizen TV, Kenya

• Islamic finance is fast taking shape in Africa, and more so in East Africa, driven in part by the continent’s urgent need for new and innovative ways to fund infrastructure development. Funding Africa’s development projects needs has been a long standing challenge. This has led to governments and private sector exploring all kinds of innovative financing mechanisms ....

Source: Trade Arabia, UAE

• The proposal by AAOIFI for centralized Sharia boards, if implemented in countries active in Islamic finance, will help the industry move toward greater standardization and harmonization in Sharia interpretations, S&P Global Ratings said. "In our opinion, the lack of such standardization has prevented the industry from achieving a greater degree of global integration, and accounts for its current fragmentation," ....

Source: Gulf News, Qatar

• Initial demand market was largely driven by environmentally and socially responsible investors and has continued to grow, developing into an asset class in its own right. As a result, discussion about a green sukuk has emerged, following Islamic finance principles, in that, they are structured in the same manner as a traditional sukuk observing Sharia ....

Source: Bloomberg, USA

• Gold is acceptable for the first time as an investment in Islamic finance after the group that sets standards for the industry adopted Shariah-compliant rules for trading the metal. The rules allow gold to be used in the $1.88 trillion Islamic finance business, the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions said Monday in a statement. The AAOIFI developed the standards with help from the producer-funded World Gold Council, which has said the new rules could spur demand for “hundreds of tons” of gold ....