Islamic finance media - a challenge, and what one could do

Gassner's picture

Dear Readers,

Islamic finance media are a tricky service. This is true for various reasons: The Internet eats up the revenues, because everything ought to be free. Islamic banks are still a niche phenomena, and international banks like UBS or Deutsche are almost as large as the entire global Islamic finance industry. Consequently the marketing budgets are much lower, too.

Last not least, who should advertise? The banks among themselves or to the clients? Advertising from bank to bank, does usually not make much sense, but real client oriented formats are hard to find, too. May be this is a niche. Others, who could finance Islamic finance media are basically the service providers to the banks, but due to the limited number of Islamic financial insitutions, direct marketing, e.g. face to face meetings will be preferred.

This in short is the background why Islamic finance media are not so well established in terms of journalism and research, but mostly reflecting the press release as criticised by the makers of the Islamic Globe. See: http://www.theislamicglobe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...

The challenge to product true quality remains, and this is why from the outset our readers are "advised/warned that in the Islamic finance industry most news are based on press releases and are normally not verified or cross checked, even if a journalist name is given."

But we shall not be too pessimistic, rather keeping patient, and looking for new ways in a changing world and turbulent times. One thing, to keep an eye on is the so-called peer to peer finance or crowdfunding. Many people giving small amounts to finance something worthwhile. This keeps non profits for microfinance at work, like http://www.KIVA.org but also http://www.Wikipedia.org raises its funds online the same way.

The ultimate question is would this work in Islamic finance, too? Would the reader be willing to contribute one, five or ten Dollar for the quarterly costs of IslamicFinance.de for instance? Questions, over questions. It is simple to find out, just do it:

http://www.kapipal.com/islamicfinance

Kapipal is a service which allows to collect a certain amount for a purpose, while payment is done safely via the established firm Paypal. There is no need to have a Paypal account, any credit card will do.

You help to maintain and expand the offering of IslamicFinance.de with your contribution! The amount of USD 2500 in total pays for assistants to summarize the news, server costs, and IT support.

With your help IslamicFinance.de could grow. And once, if each user pays in average five Dollar we can hire journalists. IslamicFinance has about 100'000 unique visitors. During the two month fundraising period IslamicFinance.de aims to raise 2'500 USD only.

All the best,

Michael Saleh Gassner