IslamicFinance.de

Press Release

Today sees the launch of a new Journal on Islamic finance from dedicated Islamic finance media entity Yasaar Media.

The Journal, called So Far – the Journal of Strategic Thinking in Islamic Finance, is written and edited by members of an Islamic finance Think Tank and is modelled on traditional academic journals. The difference with So Far is that the members of the Think Tank are predominantly practitioners rather than academics.
Member of the Think Tank are drawn from the ranks of committed Islamic finance professionals around the world and range from the Gulf and the Far East to the USA and Europe.

Each issue of So Far is dedicated to a single topic of core importance to the Islamic finance industry – and the launch issue looks at the thorny issue of the problems facing the Sukuk market. Unlike many other journals So Far is distributed free in PDF format and is available from a variety of sources including Yasaar Media thus guaranteeing maximum readership and exposure.

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The Bahrain Financial Exchange and Bursa Malaysia signed an agreement to study a common platform on which Islamic finance products such as commodity murabahas can be traded. Malaysia's stock exchange launched a platform last year on which murabaha, an Islamic money market instrument, can be traded using palm oil as the underlying commodity.

Eastern District Cooling Co. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zamil Industrial Investment Company (Zamil Industrial), has signed with The National Commercial Bank (NCB), the first non-recourse project financing done in the region for a district cooling project. In November 2007, Zamil Industrial signed a 22-year Energy Performance contract with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) for the complete outsourcing of process and comfort cooling, including the building of a central cooling plant to supply 20,000 tons of refrigeration within the premises of
Saudi Iron & Steel Company (Hadeed) in Jubail Industrial City.

Bahrain-based Sakana Holistic Housing Solutions and BMI Bank (BMI), an associate of Bank Muscat, signed a Commodity Murabaha Islamic Financing facility whereby BMI Bank provided BD 3 Million funding for 1 year to Sakana towards working capital requirements.

This agreement is in continuation of a 2 year relationship which both organizations with Islamic financing facilities amounting to BD 8.2 Million extended by BMI to Sakana which were repaid on due date.

Malaysian and the United Kingdom Islamic banks signed off on a standardised wakala deposit agreement, which some bankers said could help the industry reduce its reliance on the controversial commodity Murabaha structure.

The Financial Times produced a special looking into the Future of Islamic Finance.

The download is free of charge.

Yasaar media published a new report called Islamic Finance in North America 2009 for free download, which is co-published by Codexa Capital, UM Financial Group, King & Spalding, and Doha Islamic.

According to the report Islamic finance in North America has developed along two quite separate paths:

• The first path focuses on retail Islamic finance and centres mostly on home financing products and credit cards.

• The second path involves a number of high profile GCC-based Islamic investment banks and their deployment of hundreds of millions of dollars in private equity and real estate developments in North America.

Read the full report for free at the link below.