IslamicFinance.de

The Islamic Development Bank has launched a programme to release $180 million in financing to six African countries for renewable energy projects. The new initiative, called Renewable Energy for Poverty Reduction, will target projects over the next three years to improve access to electricity in Africa's rural areas. Around $125 million have been committed by the bank and initial talks with potential partners such as the OPEC Fund for International Development have started to secure the rest. The initiative will focus on West Africa and projects in Burkina Faso have already been approved. Projects such as mini-grids and rooftop solar systems for Mali, Senegal, Niger and Nigeria are likely to follow and a sixth African country not yet determined.

Turkish Islamic lender Bank Asya said it had weathered mass deposit withdrawals, which the media said were orchestrated by government supporters as part of a backlash against a corruption scandal blamed on an influential cleric. Turkish media say state-owned companies and institutional depositors loyal to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have withdrawn 4 billion lira ($1.79 billion), some 20 percent of the bank's total deposits, over the last month to try to sink the lender. The bank is reportedly not at risk because new deposits worth more than half that amount were placed in the bank by ordinary citizens. The government has declined to comment.