Muhammad Al-Bashir Muhammad al-Amine

Islamic banking in Africa

The African market for Islamic banking is unique for several reasons. The continent is witnessing an unprecedented economic growth in the last decade. Return on investment in Africa is higher than in any other developing region. Moreover, Islamic banking in Africa is supported by a growing openness and acceptability by many regulators and politicians. There is growing interest from sovereign states in issuing sukuk and countries such as South Africa, Senegal Ivory Coast and Togo have already tested the international market. At the same time, there is a need to be aware of the challenges facing the industry and how the associated risks can be mitigated. African regulators need to adopt the right policies and increase the level of cooperation. They should work closely with the multinational financial institutions such as the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the World Bank.

Sukuk market is the fastest growing segment of international finance

The sukuk market is one of the fastest growing segments in the global financial market. Muhammad Al-Bashir Muhammad al-Amine shows this in the introduction of his book titled “Global Sukuk and Islamic Securitisation Market - Financial Engineering and Product Innovation”.
The book represents the latest analytical offering on the subject of sukuk and was published by Brill under its Arab and Islamic law series.
The point that the author tries to make is that sukuk market dynamics is as complex as other asset classes whether in Muslim jurisdictions or non-Muslim ones. These relate to a cornucopia of problems - regulatory framework, enabling legislation, ratings, Shariah structures, purchase undertaking, guarantees, especially third party Sukuk guarantees, SPVs (special purpose vehicles), trust laws, court procedure (in case of defaults and recourse to law especially for different creditors), listings, secondary market, arbitration clauses and so on.
Therefor, any analysis will have to begin from the basic proposition of the dynamics of the issuer jurisdiction, and these vary dramatically from country to country.

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