Tag Archives: Islam

China sets sights on Islamic finance

Posted on February 12, 2008 | Leave a comment

China sets sights on Islamic finance

CHINA, the new economic powerhouse and one of the world’s fastest growing economies, has set its sights on Islamic banking and finance.

The US$3.43 trillion (RM11.11 trillion) economy plans to woo Islamic banking and finance institutions to the country by establishing an Islamic finance hub.

Islamic finance, with global assets worth over US$1 trillion (RM3.24 trillion), is now among the fastest growing sectors in international finance.

Shenyang, the largest city in northeast China, has started the ball rolling by seeking Malaysia’s expertise in Islamic banking and finance to help establish an Islamic finance centre in the region.

If the plan materialises, Shenyang will become the first Islamic banking and financial hub in the country of 1.3 billion people.

The plan to establish Islamic finance centre would complement Shenyang Finance Development Target 2010.

Under the target, Shenyang, which is the capital city of Liaoning province, will be developed into a regional finance centre that houses financial institutions, financial markets, advanced financial facilities and efficient financial services by 2010.

With a population of 7.2 million and relatively high income per capita, Shenyang itself provides a ready market for Islamic banking and finance products.

Shenyang, which was the capital of China until the relocation of the capital to Beijing after the fall of Ming dynasty, is now the base for equipment and manufacturing industry.

Islamic Banking and Finance Institute (IBFIM) managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Dr Adnan Alias said if the Chinese community in Malaysia adopts Islamic financial products, imagine the market in China if the people there become aware of the products.

“After all, the Chinese are known to be rational consumers, especially in the financial sector,” he said.

On January 29, the Shenyang authority inked a memorandum of collaboration with its Malaysian partners, IBFIM and the Kuala Lumpur Chinese Assembly Hall (KLCAH).

Under the agreement, IBFIM will work with KLCAH to provide the Shenyang authority with syariah advisory and consultancy services and training in Islamic banking and finance.

They will also provide education to Shenyang’s people and the authority on the awareness of Islamic finance as well as the significance of Islamic finance to the society and business.

IBFIM will also conduct various domestic and international training and development programmes on Islamic banking, takaful and Islamic capital markets.

Adnan said currently, there are no Islamic banks in Shenyang and this is the first time the authority is collaborating with any party on Islamic finance.

Director of administrative committee of Shenyang Finance and Trade Development Zone’s investment bureau, Yin Hongwu, said initially the Islamic banking and finance products would be targeted at over 100,000 Muslims in northeast China.

Later, it would be spread to the 100 million people in northern China.

He said the Shenyang authority has no targeted time frame for the establishment of an Islamic finance hub in the city or the targeted size of investment that it expects to attract in the Islamic finance sector.

“It is in the planning stage,” he said.

The introduction of Islamic banking and finance products to Shenyang is expected to benefit the industrial players and complement the conventional banking and financial products there.

Among the industries in Shenyang include mechanical processing, metallurgy, chemical industry, medicine, light textile, electron, car, aviation and construction materials.

Currently, Shenyang has 59 financial institutions including 25 banks, 25 insurance firms, seven securities branch agencies, two futures agencies, with more than 40,000 practitioners engaging in finance.

Since the opening-up of financial industry of Shenyang in 2004, nine foreign-funded banks and five wholly foreign-owned insurance companies have set up branches or representative offices in the city.

Elaborating on the collaboration with Shenyang authority, Adnan said IBFIM will help Shenyang authority to set up an Islamic financial community on the allocated 120ha site.

“We have been invited by the Shenyang Province Authority. They will give us a piece of land to conceptualise and develop it into an Islamic financial community complete with commercial and residential entities within the enclave,” he said.

He said IBFIM would submit the proposal for the development of the community in the third quarter of the year.

Meanwhile, KLCAH secretary general Ng Thien Phing told Business Times that three months ago, Shenyang authority has asked KLCAH to look for an adviser to help them establish Islamic banking and finance.

“They plan to set up Islamic banking and financial centre in Shenyang, so they need to understand how Islamic banking works,” he said.

As a start, IFBIM and KLCAH will come out with a series of articles on understanding Islamic finance in Chinese dailies.

Ng said in May this year, a seminar on trade promotion will be held in Kuala Lumpur to introduce Shenyang to potential investors in Islamic banking and finance.

A month later, IBFIM’s Adnan will lead a delegation, comprising bankers and businessmen, to Shenyang to explore the potential in the province.

The delegation is expected to include bankers and businessmen from Middle East.

“They want Malaysia to be a platform to attract Middle Eastern Islamic banking and finance institutions to Shenyang. This is because Malaysia has good relations with Middle East and the country is also the chairman of OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference),” he said.

Ng said Shenyang has also asked KLCAH to establish relations between the Muslim community there and the Malays in Malaysia.

They also invited Malaysian ministers to visit Shenyang, he added.

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Islamic banks’ assets to hit $1trn by 2010

Posted on January 25, 2008 | Leave a comment

Islamic banks’ assets to hit $1trn by 2010

Islamic banks are witnessing rapid growth and attracting more patronage worldwide, particularly in the Islamic world, said Al Salam Bank Managing Director and Board Vice-Chairman, Hussein Mohammed Al Meeza.

While addressing the Algeria Economic Forum, which opened on Tuesday in the Algerian capital, Algiers, Al Meeza said: “All financial institutions’ reports point to significant growth of assets and liabilities of Islamic banks in all Islamic countries, except in Iran. It is estimated that Islamic banks’ total assets are hovering around $450 billion (Dh1.6 trillion). It is highly expected that this figure would jump to about one trillion dollars by 2010.”

Al Meeza said Islamic banks are growing at higher rates than other banks and this is helping to create a conducive climate in the banking sector in most parts of the world.

He said profit margins being achieved by Islamic banks and financial institutions are better than those being achieved by their traditional counterparts in many Arab countries, adding that the sharp increase in the number of Islamic banks and financial institutions reflects the deep interest in Islamic finance and this is pushing for tough competition on this market.

“Financial statistics and studies show that there is an upward trend in the number of people who prefer to deal with Islamic banks. Islamic financial institutions’ deposits total $68bn. The assets of Islamic financial institutions have also witnessed rapid growth,” he said.

“In 1997 it was $20bn but this figure grew to $85bn in 2005. The growth rate in the Islamic finance industry in the Gulf region, for example, is about 35 per cent.

“There are about 270 banking and financial institutions in various parts of the world, including 34 in Bahrain, which is the main hub of these banking institutions in the region. The above statistics reflect a major switch from the traditional banking system to Islamic banking. This is why we see the free flow of investment in Shariah-compliant investment opportunities in the Gulf, Middle East and Asia,” said Al Meeza

He pointed to three potential areas in Islamic banking as including bonds paid by mega infrastructure and real estate projects, investors’ interest in looking for a variety of financial tools and asset management which is expected to witness a boom due to the huge wealth parked in the region, in addition to the fast growing markets of Islamic countries.

Al Meeza said the issuing of Islamic bonds continues to attract investors from Europe, the United States and Asia, in addition to the countries in the Gulf, which are enjoying an unprecedented economic boom.

“It is worth noting here that most Islamic bonds issued were rapidly covered totally due to the high demand for Islamic bonds, whose market has witnessed significant growth in 2007,” he said, adding that a number of institutions, particularly in the Gulf, have been shifting to Islamic bonds to finance their projects.

“We believe this market will witness major growth in the next five years,” he said and attributed the increase in the volume of bonds to the high oil prices, which recently hit a record high of $100 per barrel.

A report by Citigroup shows Islamic investment funds worldwide are estimated at about $3.3bn with growth expected to reach more than 25 per cent in the next seven years.

The Citigroup report estimated the deposits of Islamic banks at about $200bn, with a steady growth expected to range from 10 to 20 per cent per annum.

Al Meeza drew the attention of his audience to two major issues that Islamic banks and financial institutions must take note of.

The first being risk management, particularly with regard to Islamic banks, which are prone to risks, and the second being operations that obstruct the way of these banks to become the major engine of competition.

The golden era

“The golden age of Islamic banking and high patronage they enjoy encouraged us to launch the Salam Bank Group which continue to witness rapid growth and prosperity day by day.

“We started with Salam Bank of Sudan, then with Salam Bank of Bahrain and now with Salam Bank of Algeria. We will soon open more in other Arab countries,” said Al Meeza.

Salam Bank of Sudan, which was set up in 2005 with an initial capital of $100m, is one of the biggest banks in Sudan’s financial market and has been working hard to position itself as one of the most reputable banks on the Sudanese market, thanks to its innovative and high quality services.

The Salam Bank of Bahrain was established in 2006 with a capital of 120 million Bahraini dinars ($320m).

The bank was listed on the Bahrain Stock Market on April 27, 2006.

The general subscription of its shares attracted high patronage having been covered 63.4 times, while the outcome of the subscription of the bank’s shares, which closed in March 2006, reached BD2.7bn. The bank achieved a profit of $43.5m in 2006.

This was followed by the setting up of the Salam Bank of Algeria, which obtained a licence to operate in Algeria on October 17, 2006 and started its business with 7.2 billion Algerian dinars ($10.7m).

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Posted in Events held and planned, Growth

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DIFC will be Islamic finance hub

Posted on January 25, 2008 | Leave a comment

DIFC will be Islamic finance hub

The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is creating new infrastructure as part of its efforts to become a global Islamic finance hub, a senior official said on Thursday.

Chief executive officer Nasser Al Shaali said Dubai wants to take advantage of both the “demography and geography” of the region to achieve this goal.

Islamic finance in the Gulf is gaining popularity and assets of banks in the sector are growing faster than their counterparts in conventional banking.

Globally, assets of Islamic financial institutions are estimated to be more than $500 billion.

“We want to build critical mass in this sector by creating an international point of reference for Islamic finance regulations, stand-ards and practices,” Al Shaali said at a bankers lunch organised by Emirates NBD.

He said the planned initiatives include setting up of the DIFC Sharia Centre, an Islamic hedge funds platform, an Islamic finance portal, a commodity murabah exchange, and creation of a judicial acad-emy and research centre.

“We already have developed the world’s only model law, which can be applied to regulate the Islamic finance sector by any jurisdiction and we would be happy to assist,” he said.

Malaysia and Bahrain are among the countries where Islamic banking and finance sectors have made considerable progress. Islamic banking, which follows Sharia’s ban on interest, has received a boost in the Gulf from high oil export revenues of Arab countries.

The DIFC, set up by the government in 2004 to make the emirate a financial services hub, has attracted more than 500 companies that include top foreign financial institutions.

The Dubai International Financial Exchange, which is part of the DIFC, is the world’s biggest bourse for Islamic bond listings in terms of value, which is about $16 billion.

According to Al Shaali the DIFC is also strengthening its standards in areas such as insolvency, accounting, compliance for auditing and corporate governance.

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Posted in Current trends and news, United Arab Emirates

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S&P launches Shariah indices

Posted on January 25, 2008 | Leave a comment

S&P launches Shariah indices

Standard & Poor’s announced the launch of three new benchmark indices designed to help investors track the performance of the largest global universe of more than $20 trillion of Shariah-compliant equities.

“The launch of these new global indices underlines Standard & Poor’s commitment to providing Islamic investors with the widest possible universe of investment options that have been screened for Shariah compliance, and equipping them with the tools they need to quantify their performance,” said Alka Banerjee, Vice President of Index Services at Standard & Poor’s. “Islamic investors are increasingly looking for exposure beyond their local markets in the Middle East and Asia, and Standard & Poor’s Shariah index series provides them with the ability to slice and dice an expanding array of countries and regions by size, style and sector.”

The three new indices S&P LargeCap World Shariah, S&P SmallCap World Shariah and S&P UK Shariah – cover 26 developed markets and join Standard & Poor’s growing line-up of investable sector, region and strategy Shariah indices developed for investors seeking to abide by Islamic law.

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Posted in Mutual funds and Islamic investments, Sukuk

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Lloyds TSB expands Shariah compliant services: Launches Islamic Nostro Account

Posted on January 25, 2008 | Leave a comment

Lloyds TSB expands Shariah compliant services: Launches Islamic Nostro Account

LloydsTSB has expanded its Shariah compliant services by launching an account that allows banks to move money around the world on behalf of their individual and business clients, in keeping with Islamic Shariah law.

The Islamic Nostro Account is the first of its kind, claims LloydsTSB, to be offered by a mainstream Western bank and is a Shariah compliant version of the account used by all banks to distribute payments to customers across the world. Whenever individuals or businesses send money to other countries, the payments are made from one bank to another and are passed through a Nostro account in the process.

The new Lloyds TSB account is designed to ensure that the UK’s two million Muslims and 100,000 Muslim firms can make and receive international payments without compromising their faith. Many of these customers regularly make, or receive, international payments through the estimated 250 Islamic banks worldwide. However, until now, the process of transferring this money between banks has not been in line with Islamic principles.

The Nostro account adheres to the principles of Islamic law, because it does not pay interest on money banks hold in the account; does not provide an overdraft facility; and does not allow any of the funds held to be invested in industries – such as alcohol and gambling – which are prohibited under the rules of the faith.

The global Islamic financial services market is now worth an estimated $480 billion and is growing at almost 15% a year. As the range of Shariah compliant products and services widens, with developments such as the Nostro account, the market is expected to grow even further.

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Posted in Innovations and developments, Islamic Banks, United Kingdom

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