Abu Dhabi – Mubasher: Islamic finance assets worldwide had an estimated value of $1.8 trillion in 2014 and are expected to almost double by 2020 to reach $3.2 trillion, according to ICD Thomson Reuters Islamic Finance Development Indicator.
Ahead of the 2015 World Islamic Banking Conference (WIBC 2015), Thomson Reuters and The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), an affiliate of the Islamic Development Bank Group, today revealed groundbreaking reports scheduled to be released at a dedicated Roundtable on 1 December, 2015.
As global acceptance of Islamic finance continues to grow, more non-Muslim sovereigns are starting Islamic finance initiatives by first introducing Islamic finance regulations and assisting Islamic financial institutions to establish their operations, and then tapping the Islamic capital markets through sovereign sukuk, according to data issued today.
Canada, which is considered to have the most effective and safest banking system in the world, is one country that is looking to position itself as a regional hub for Islamic finance in North America.
Despite allowing Islamic banking, Takaful, Islamic leasing, and Murabaha, the current legal framework for Islamic finance, do not permit conventional banks to offer Islamic banking services nor allow the conversion of current banks into full-fledged Islamic ones. However, new amendments are underway to allow this conversion and are set to come into effect in early 2016. Kazakhstan also plans to issue the country's first sovereign sukuk by early 2016, to prompt incentives for more corporate issuances.
