Dear visitor,
Please feel free to ask the chatbot any question, which will reply based on my publications. On the left side you find recent news, on the right side the blog entries with opinion pieces. My interest is in www.islamicwealthmanagement.com, fostering Islamic financial education, advising from time to time on matters of Islamic social and humanitarian finance aside from working in Islamic private banking.
-> the entry field is on the bottom of the post!
All the best, Michael
Dear Writers,
Whether you are an academic or practionner: If you wish to see your paper published on IslamicFinance.de please send us the relevant document along with a confirmation that you hold the copyrights of it and we can upload the work with your abstract provided.
As simple as that!
Best regards,
Michael Saleh Gassner
As salamu Alaikum,
Next saturday, May 13, 2023, at 15.00 I present as guest of Muslim Student Association in Zurich (@msazurich) on the 1st chapter of my book and then go into the banking crisis and money creation. The talk is in English.
Physical
???? Samstag, 13. Mai 2023
? 15:00 - 17:00
???? Building KAB, floor G, room 01
????? Kantonsschulstrasse 3, 8001 Zürich
Physical attendance - registration linked at @msazurich and in my link tree in Insta profile. (just confirm lengthy privacy in German).
Talk online accessible without registration: Click on Linktr.ee/islamgeldwohlstand - presentation on bigbluebutton/senfcall similar to zoom - no installation required or instagram @islamgeldwohlstand
My German book "Islam, Geld und Wohlstand - Ein Handbuch über Finanzen und Vorsorge" can be obtained:
Instagram:
DE: @islambooks24
CH: @IslamShop.ch
or any other bookstore or online dealer in German speaking countries - if you are publisher interested for your country, please contact me.
Michael Orzano, head of equity indices, S&P Dow Jones Indices: Most S&P and Dow Jones Islamic Indices Outperform Conventional #Benchmarks in 2017
Most S&P and Dow Jones Shariah-compliant benchmarks outperformed their conventional counterparts year-to-date through June 28, 2017 as Financials – which are largely absent from Islamic indices – have lagged the broader market, and Information Technology and Health Care – which tend to be overweight in Islamic Indices – have been the two top performing sectors so far this year.
Global equity markets added to strong Q1 gains as the Dow Jones Islamic Market World and S&P Global BMI Shariah Indices gained 13.6% and 13.3%, respectively for the year. Each index outperformed the conventional S&P Global Broad Market Index (BMI) by about 2.5%. In the U.S., the S&P 500 Shariah gained 10.4% for the year, outperforming the S&P 500 by 1.4%. Regional Dow Jones Islamic Market benchmarks for Asia-Pacific, Europe and Emerging Markets all beat their conventional counterparts by meaningful margins as well.
Asia-Pacific, Europe and Emerging Markets Lead Global Equity Markets Higher
Maybank Islamic launched a new account for its Islamic private wealth clientele. The new feature will provide high net worth (HNW) clients with comprehensive private banking services. The bank explained that the enhanced platform will allow HNW clients to view and monitor their various Islamic investment portfolios holistically, in one single statement. The recent Asia Pacific Wealth Report by Capgemini indicates that the greatest enthusiasm for putting portfolios to work for social gain comes from high net worth individuals in the emerging markets of Indonesia, followed closely by Malaysia. Maybank's Group Head of Community Financial Services, Datuk Lim Hong Tat, said that Maybank Islamic provides an avenue for HNW individuals to earn returns in a more socially-responsible manner.
Summit will explore intersection of #fintech, #ESG and #Islamicfinance. #RFISummit17
January 24, 2017, Zurich, Switzerland –
Bringing together a diversity of perspectives is critical for continuing the growth occurring within responsible finance. On this premise, the Responsible Finance & Investment Summit 2017 will convene in Zurich, Switzerland from 3-4 May 2017 around the theme “Building Bridges, Expanding Impact”.
Recent estimates from industry stakeholders show continued growth in responsible finance assets in many geographies and sectors. Responsible investment in Europe grew by 42% during the past 2 years, while in the U.S., assets grew by 33%. In Islamic finance, which has a global presence with a significant presence in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, growth in the last 2 years has been 21%. Identifying actionable areas for collaboration will support continued growth towards a more sustainable financial system.
The existence of interest, variation of charges on the basis of amounts of cash withdrawals using the cards and the fact that the default rates with quite punitive charges are some of the features that makes the conventional credit cards non-compliant from the Islamic perspective.
In order to comply with the Shariah principles and guidelines, Islamic banking has embraced the needs of customers by repackaging and reimagining existing conventional banking products or engineering innovative products. These help regulating human interactions and transactions to promote transparency, fairness, justice and accountability to each other. The provisions of interest, the financing of business ventures involving alcohol, arms trade and undertaking excessive risks as well as ambiguous contractual obligations that end up benefiting some parties in transactions at the expense of others, form part of the Shariah’s prohibitions. Credit cards are therefore considered offensive to the Shariah standards
#Qatar First Bank (QFB) is developing a pioneering private banking platform, which offers clients the opportunity to select from a wide range of financial solutions. According to CEO Ziad Makkawi the bank is transforming from being an investment focused to an investor-focused entity. QFB’s Head of Private Banking and Wealth Management, Nizar Ahmadi, said the open architecture platform will be available exclusively to private banking clients. QFB's Shariah-compliant products include financing, private banking services, innovative investment solutions, as well as family office services covering trusts, foundations, advisory, real estate planning, and statement consolidation.
The four private banks’ authorities have long been violating the bank company act, putting their family members on the board of directors. According to the bank company act, 2013, the banks’ board cannot comprise more than two members of a single family. But the four banks still continue their dominion over the board of directors with their family members at the helm. These are the National Bank, the Premier Bank, The City Bank and the First Security Islami Bank.
Bank Asya clients are battling help the Turkish lender against what they say is a government-orchestrated bid to scuttle it. Turkish social networking sites are full of customer’s notices to raise funds to “Save Bank Asya from sinking!” The Islamic lender has more than a million deposit-holding customers and 282 branches. President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an targeted it as part of his attacks on the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen. Erdo?an has long accused Gülen - now based in the United States - of seeking to overthrow him.
BNP Paribas-INCEIF Centre for Islamic Wealth Management (CIWM) organised a conference on "Malaysia, the Future Global Private Banking Hub: Opportunities and Challenges". It showed that current trends towards regional financial integration have presented significant opportunities into the pool of savings of Asia’s expanding middle class, now more than 2.6 million high net worth individuals. These trends show the increasing demand for private banking by HNWIs with taste for more sophisticated consumer finance and wealth management products.
Jan - June 2014 issue of the Malaysian ICM bulletin published by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) is now available online.
Islamic fund and wealth management is an integral component of Islamic financial system. This is attributed to the significant rise in income and wealth of certain Islamic countries over the last four decades as well as the emergence of Islamic finance as a viable alternative to conventional finance. The benefits of Islamic fund and wealth management cut across racial and religious boundaries as it not only benefit Muslims who wish to see their wealth preserved and enhanced within the Shariah framework, but also to non-Muslims who may view this from an ethical perspective of managing wealth.
Shari’a-compliant launches from UK based managers are growing steadily. The UK is at the forefront of Muslim investment. Even crowdfunding is becoming increasingly acceptable in the Arab world to raise capital for start-ups. But investments of any nature have to be Shari’a-compliant. Hereby Muslim communities from Bangladesh or Indonesia may differ from Arabs or Iranians. Some national governments, like Pakistan, insist on full Shari’a financing whereas others like Dubai or Bahrain have a less stringent approach to this. A lot of Shari’a money is completely untapped and is waiting on bank accounts. Most conventional products are not able to access this money due to non-Shari’a compliance.
Dear Reader,
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of IslamicFinance.de please find at the hyperlink below the relaunch of the newsletter.
http://www.islamicfinance.de/files/20140529%20IslamicFinance%20dot%20de%...
Any new issues will be announced to our registered users of IslamicFinance.de and to the members of the related LinkedIn Group of IslamicFinance.de.
If you wish to register please go to http://www.islamicfinance.de/?q=newsletter/subscriptions or become member of the LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostRecent=&gid=147616&trk=my_groups-tile...
Enjoy reading! And if you do, please consider sharing the free newsletter with your friends & colleagues by forwarding or subscribing an internal email address to forward it your entire firm.
NB: I appreciate feedback to improve the content and better understand what readers are looking for. Please allow time for reply, which I may not be able to give to all enquiries after sending out the newsletter.
All the best,
Michael Saleh Gassner
Religious investors, in economic terms the third largest group to invest on the world’s stock markets, can post high placement profits and remain faithful to their religious creed. This is the message of the third biennial world report on religious investors, the only report of its kind.
The report highlights the profile of religious investors who respect this balance and thus can have a major influence on company ethics:
- Their principles of faith can serve as a road map for investment choices;
- By nature, these investors have a long-term view which is key to the notion of responsible investment;
- They can call on the support of what is often a worldwide community;
- They have set up networks that offer the chance to work together on stakeholder actions and therefore increase their impact.
Even though a certain number of religious organisations invest responsibly and use their role as shareholder-activists to promote change this sort of profile is far from the majority.
Contents
Revised Shariah Screening Methodology: 1
Expands ICM’s Global Reach
SHARIAH
New Shariah Advisory Council Resolutions 3
DEVELOPMENT
Region’s First Structured Covered Sukuk 7
Royal Award for Islamic Finance Calls for Global 9
Nominations
SC and Autoriti Monetari Brunei to Strengthen 9
Efforts in Greater Cross-border Activities
SC Leads Islamic Finance Taskforce to Publish a 10
Report on Enhancing Infrastructure for ICM
REGULATORY
IFSB-IOSCO-SC Collaborate on Disclosure 11
Requirements for ICM Products
SC Revises Equity Guidelines for SPACS 12
Technical Note on the Application of SC’s 13
Guidelines In Relation to Non-Tradable and
Non-Transferable PDS and Sukuk
FEATURES
2013: Another Resilient Year for the Global 14
Islamic Finance Industry
Global Islamic Funds Industry: Achieving 18
Growth Under Challenging Times
Harmonisation of Shariah Rulings 22
in Islamic Finance
News Round-up 29
STATISTICAL UPDATES
Malaysian ICM – Facts and Figures 32
Free download below at source:
For many years we see in the media experts believing in inflation and even hyper inflation. However, in the same time we face proponents warning against deflation. So far we all noticed.
Only a about a week ago I read an article by Myret Zaki clarifying that unfortunately inflation and deflation co-exists.
Myret Zaki's thesis is that we face inflation on financial markets, and deflation in the real economy (in French):
http://www.bilan.ch/myret-zaki/redaction-bilan/inflation-et-deflation-co...
In my view there is a general major shift in the price matrix and I still try to figure the magnitude and implications thereof. It is a bit irritating as at University we learned about neutrality of money:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrality_of_money
This means any extra supply will increase prices equally, 5 % more money, all prices going up 5 %. Pretty plausible at first hand. However, it seems it does not work in reality any more (or never did).
Dear Reader,
IslamicFinance.de is still edited by myself, Michael Saleh Gassner. In the same time the website became part of the family's publishing house, Al Kitab.
Myself I moved to Geneva for professional reasons, working as Islamic private banker. IslamicFinance.de remains to be a private passion.
Best regards,
Michael Gassner
Dear Reader,
Islamic finance had another great year. Many of its market segments progressed, like for example the Sukuk market gaining more maturity. Despite the ongoing debt crisis a good sign of hope and happiness.
Nevertheless we are - as an industry - still not satisfied with the achievements. Islamic finance shall grow stronger in terms of social impact and in terms of substance:
Hence, please allow me to re-iterate my call for participating in international initiatives beyond just our own industry to learn and spread knowledge and experience:
Calling Islamic financial institutions to become member of the United Nations Finance Initiative
http://www.islamicfinance.de/?q=node/811
Inshallah we see more Islamic financial institutions taking a lead in SRI, Social Impact Investing and other approaches while contributing with Islamic finance knowdledge to the conventional industry. The time is now; and there are signs that Malaysia aims for a lead:
http://www.islamicfinance.de/?q=node/4151
A savings market area in which a number of new names at the top of the best buy tables emerged this year is the area of fixed rate savings bonds. In terms of the best rates in the one, two, and three-year bond market, the predominant banks are such as United Bank UK, the State Bank of India, the Bank of London and the Middle East, the Islamic Bank of Britain, Triodos Bank and First Save. No high street bank can be seen in the top list of the area. In order to be protected in the event that a bank or other institution goes bust, UK savers can rely on the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).