ARTICLES - SPECIAL COMMENT: Turkish exchange plans ties with UAE and Egyptian markets

alifarabia.com - By Rushdi Siddiqui, Global Head of Islamic Finance, Thomson Reuters
Turkey has been building capital market bridges to GCC and South East Asia, and chairman of the Istanbul Stock Exchange, Hussain Erkan, has been a leading architect in establishing dialogue, hosting events, and facilitating cooperation and coordination with his counterparts for both Islamic and conventional finance. In this interview, Erkan shares his thoughts on the challenges and progress of Islamic finance in Turkey, among various other issues. He is hopeful that the improvements made should be able to attract investors from the GCC. (source)

WORLD - CAPITAL MARKETS - Sharia investing leans to West

gulfnews.com - Islamic benchmarks have consistently outperformed conventional ones

To some observers of Islamic equity investing, Islamic or Sharia-compliant equity indexes seem to imply investing in publicly-listed companies in Muslim countries.

The end results contradict the assumptions. This also rebuts allegations by many from the anti-Sharia movement that Islamic investing is about investing in companies linked to terrorism or financing terrorism. The largest companies in the S&P Global BMI Sharia include ExxonMobil, IBM, Chevron, Nestle and Microsoft.

Today, there is a large stock count and market capitalisation weighting bias towards the non-Muslim G20 countries in all global Islamic equity indexes. We will look at country exposure of Sharia-compliant companies, the economic sector exposure and selected Muslim country Islamic indexes, and how to increase number of Sharia-compliant companies. (source)

WORLD - FINANCE - Thomson Reuters Launches World's First Islamic Interbank Rate

Thomson Reuters works with leading Islamic finance institutions and banks to provide objective and dedicated benchmark for Shariah-compliant short-term interbank funding in Islamic finance industry

New York, London, Bahrain — Thomson Reuters today launched the world's first Islamic finance benchmark rate, designed to provide an objective and dedicated indicator for the average expected return on Shariah-compliant short-term interbank funding. The Islamic Interbank Benchmark Rate (IIBR), announced at the 18th Annual World Islamic Banking Conference in Bahrain, uses the contributed rates of 16 Islamic banks and the Islamic sections of conventional banks to provide a reliable and much-needed alternative for pricing Islamic instruments to the conventional interest-based benchmarks used for mainstream finance. (source)

OPINION - Highs and lows of 2011 and a wish list for 2012

“GOD gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say ‘thank you’?” — Author unknown

I want to thank NST. Islamic Finance 2.0 is one year old.

In reflecting back and looking forward, there were exciting highs and disappointing lows.

The lows included:

# Early death of deputy governor Datuk Mohd Razif Abdul Kadir

# EIIB, one of five FSA approved banks in the UK, significantly downsizing operations, following the heels of Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB) parental rescue capital injection. (source)

OPINION - SPECIAL COMMENT: Turkey, SIBOS and Islamic Finance (Rushdi Siddiqui)

ALIFARABIA.COM - I was at two recent conferences, OIC Member States’ Stock Exchange Forum 5th Meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, and SWIFT’s SIBOS massive event in Toronto, and, folks, we have a lot of work ahead of us in Islamic finance/Muslim countries on build out of the capital markets, linkages, etc.  (source)

WORLD - OPINION - Money politics and political freedom - Islamic finance hubs : corruption and freedom (Turkey)

KARL Kraus said: “Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.” I was recently asked to give a speech on political freedom and corruption in Muslim countries. Both areas have a direct impact on capital flight and market formation, brain drain and economic development, portfolio investors and direct investments, including Islamic finance. (source)

OPINION - Muslim BRIC has arrived

THE investing and financing world is about country linkages that are economic and financial opportunities clustered as growth stories. The most recognised country linkage is BRIC (Brazil, Russia India and China): it conjures mental images of geographies, growth, size, demand, etc.

Another term that is increasingly invoked by businesses looking for opportunities is 'RDE,' or Rapidly Developing Economies, and includes examples of Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and so on. To put theory into practice, globally committed firms, like Thomson Reuters, have established positions like Global Head of RDE. (full story)

INDEX - SAMI Halal Food Index holds Turkish companies

Sime Darby, Nestle (M) and Genting Plantations are among the top companies on the Socially Acceptable Market Investments Halal Food Index.
 

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian listed food companies form over a third of the 274 companies in the newly-launched SAMI (Socially Acceptable Market Investments) Halal Food Index.

These 95 companies represent over two-fifths or US$53 billion (RM161 billion) of the index's total market capitalisation of US$114 billion (RM345 billion).

Sime Darby Bhd, Nestle (M) Bhd and Genting Plantations Bhd are among the top companies on the index, Thomson Reuters global head of Islamic finance and OIC countries Rushdi Siddiqui said.

"This adds feather to Malaysia's Islamic finance hub and the convergence of both (Islamic finance and halal industry)," he told a news conference on the sidelines of World Halal Forum (WHF) 2011 here yesterday.

Also present were Deloitte Malaysia global leader of Islamic finance Daud Vicary Abdullah, WHF director (Malaysia/the UK) Abdalhamid Evans and AmIslamic Funds Management chief executive officer Datin Maznah Mahbob.(full story)

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?