VTB Capital has helped arrange a $500 million sukuk for UAE based property developer Damac (NR/BB/NR). The sukuk issued in the name of Alpha Star Holding III Limited drew demand of around $1 billion and was priced at a profit rate of 6.25%. The issuance came in tighter than its initial price guidance of 6.5% and will be used to repay Damac’s USD650m sukuk due in 2019. Primary Sukuk Market The prim... »

Goldman Sachs helps arrange Islamic Development Bank Sukuk The triple A rated Islamic Development Bank in its regular Sukuk issuance dropped JP Morgan as an arranger, instead selecting Goldman Sachs to assist it in its $1.25 billion offering. JP Morgan had previously been an arranger in IDB’s two issuances the previous year when the Islamic supranational last issued a $1.25 billion offering achiev... »

Islamic Banks Miss out on Saudi Sukuk The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has issued two sovereign Sukuk in its debut international hard currency Sharia compliant debt issuance.  Issued in two tranches of $4.5 billion each, the issuances represent the largest sukuk ever issued beating Indonesia’s previous record issuances of $2 billion in March of this year, as well as from May 2015. Both of the Saudi suk... »

Report by IMF highlights key challenges facing the Islamic Financial Industry. Islamic Banking (IB) has grown rapidly in value and geographical reach, and has become an important and integral part of the financial systems in many countries. Though IB accounts for less than 2 percent of global finance, IBs currently operate in more than 60 countries and the industry has become systemically importan... »

Central Bank Looking to Implement Fund Based Deposit Shari’ah compliant liquidity facilities Consultation paper looks at establishing a fund based deposit facility for UK Islamic Financial institutions. The work to develop a Shari’ah compliant facility commenced in the second half of 2015, and is part of the Bank’s more general approach to broadening market access to central bank liquidity facilit... »

    World Bank Group, and Islamic Development Bank CC BY 3.0 IGO Islamic Finance and Shared Prosperity 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 gros... »

London is established as the leading western centre for Islamic finance and has been at forefront of key developments in Europe. »

Islamic financial instruments also offer an attractive source of financing for regional infrastructure projects. »

In the annual Global Competitiveness Report produced by the World Economic Forum, no Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) country made it into the top 15 with previously ranked Qatar dropping from ranking 14 to 18. »

Increasing the Potential of Islamic Finance in Africa CNBC Africa discussed the growth potential of Islamic Finance in Africa. Samira Mensah, Associate Director for Financial Institutions Ratings at Standard and Poor’s and Ameen Hassen, Head of Shari’ah Banking at Standard Bank participated in a discussion which highlighted the growth space for Islamic finance in Africa. Demand within ... »