BANKING - Articles - Turkish participation banks should enter Europe

sharingrisk.org - S&P recently suggested that Turkish participation banks, as Islamic banks are known in the country, could sustain their recent growth (they accounted for 5% of assets in the country at year-end 2010, compared with 2.8% in 2005) if they leverage their international ties further (three of the four participation banks have GCC-based owners).  I would take this one step further and suggest that they could provide a lead in continental Europe for Islamic banking with financial support from their owners. It is already underway with Kuveyt Turk, the Turkish subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House, opening a branch in Germany and Bank Asya planning an acquisition in the Balkans. (source)

OPINION - Right track, wrong train ? Rushdi Siddiqui in the Malay "Business Times"

The end of the year is a good time to reflect. Rushdi Siddiqui asks and answers  10 relevant questions (hereunder).  Blake Goud gives his opinion (click Sharing Risk dot Org logo at the right).  What do YOU think ?  
Share your opinion on the Blog of Blake, to keep the answers centralized.

THE year 2010 was a year of "headwinds" for Islamic finance, and the last article of the year is a survey on issues that merit more airplay and public comment. There were so many interesting stories in Islamic finance; some good (announcement of IILM Corp), some bad (Investment Dar using syariah defence), and some ugly (anti-syariah movement).

This is not meant to be a scientific survey, but more of dialogue to answer the bigger question: Are we getting closer to where we should be in Islamic finance?