#Sukuk issuance to drive growth in Islamic finance

According to Standard Chartered Saadiq, much of the growth in Islamic finance is expected to come from capital markets business relating to sukuk. Ahsan Ali, Global Head of Islamic Origination, said that sukuk was a mainstream component of capital markets in core Islamic finance markets such as Malaysia and the UAE. There is a healthy pipeline of issuance across the world and more issuers are expected to come to the market over the next year. Although a significant share of capital market issuance have been dominated by conventional bond issuance and loan syndications, Ali expects GCC issuers to issue sukuks along with conventional bonds. In the future a pickup in issuance from Bank Negara Malaysia, coupled with the deficit financing needs of the GCC members is expected to boost issuance.