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ISDB PSF Awards 2023

Latest News - Friday, 31 March 2023

Daily Cover Story: IFN Weekly Round-up: 25th – 31st March 2023

Turkiye and Uzbekistan separately met with IsDB Institute officials to discuss Islamic banking regulations and capacity-building. The Philippines is promoting Islamic finance certification for industry players, Malaysia made enhancements to the requirements for offering Islamic REITs and ETFs with Waqf...

This Week’s Newsletter

Cover Story: Islamic metaverse — buzzword or keyword?

Investors are pumping serious money into the metaverse, and the Islamic finance industry is paying close attention; some are even advocating for a Halal metaverse. But how does Islamic finance stand to benefit from this...

Editor's Note

Step into the future

The metaverse opens a whole new world of possibilities and opportunities. In less than a decade, the metaverse is expected to be worth some US$5 trillion and pundits are expecting this new iteration of the...

IFN Case Study

YTL Power International’s Sukuk: Covering obligations

Independent power producer and multi-utility group YTL Power International, whose key businesses are power generation and retail; water supply and wastewater services, and communications, has issued five Islamic papers worth a total of RM1.51 billion...

IFN Sovereign Securities

Sovereign Securities: Saudi Arabia closes March 2023 Sukuk issuance

Saudi Arabia closed its March 2023 offerings under the government’s Saudi riyal-denominated Sukuk program, while Indonesia’s sovereign Shariah securities series received total bids of IDR23.51 trillion (US$1.53 billion)....

IFN Country Analysis

The Ivory Coast: Addressing the demand for Islamic finance

A leading member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire, or the Ivory Coast, with its 38.6% Muslim population, holds potential for having a thriving Islamic finance industry....

IFN Sector Analysis

Bank debt and loan financing: Continuous growth

The global Islamic banking sector has experienced continuous growth over the years, and is expected to occupy an even bigger share of the global Islamic financial services industry assets in the coming years. EMIR ZAINUL...

IFN Financial Innovation Report 2022

IFN Monthly Review

February

Egypt's long-awaited Sukuk have finally been issued and received overwhelming demand; Russia started implementing an Islamic finance experimental pilot project to test the waters; and Ethiopia looks into a Sukuk framework. Meanwhile, two US corporates have announced plans to each issue a Sukuk paper and...

IFN Awards

IFN Awards

The Islamic Finance news Awards honor the best in the Islamic financial industry and are one of the most prestigious awards highly recognized by the global Islamic capital markets. These awards continue to be an apt representation of the current Islamic financial market landscape.


IFN Reports

IFN Features

  • Scaling up sustainable finance to promote sustainable economy transition in Qatar

    The multidimensional Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV 2030) is based on a comprehensive approach of human development with four societal pillars: economy, people, culture and environment. The country’s environmental and climatic features present a difficult...

  • Islamic finance in the US economy

    The US is among the most advanced and highly developed free-market economies in the world (Zgheib, 2018). It is a culturally rich country taking pride in its history, culture and religious liberty (Tubadji et al.,...

  • Pakistan’s Sukuk challenges, hope on the horizon

    In February 2023, the Pakistani government launched a one-year Sukuk Ijarah facility after receiving a lot of demand from Islamic financial institutions for short-maturity instruments. The Shariah Advisory Committee of the State Bank of Pakistan...

  • UAE at the forefront of Islamic finance innovation

    Being one of the early pioneers and proponents of Islamic finance, the Islamic financial industry in the UAE continues to grow from strength to strength. Since the establishment of the world’s first fully-fledged Islamic commercial...

  • Protecting Takaful consumers: Regulations and dispute resolution

    The Islamic insurance model, Takaful, was introduced as an alternative to conventional insurance which is considered forbidden under Islamic law or Shariah law by Muslim jurists, and operates on the principles of risk-sharing, solidarity and...

Back to Basics

  • A weekly educative column on Islamic banking and finance today

    SDGs: Part 6

    No poverty In this piece, I shall endeavor to share my thoughts on how the Bait Al Maal concept could be adopted in the restricted sense to support SDG No 1 by using modern technology to first reduce and finally achieve zero poverty in 57 Islamic countries to start with. For the sake of clarity, I borrow the following definition of poor and extremely poor from the UN website: “Nearly half of the world’s population currently lives in poverty, defined as income of less than US$2 per day, including one billion children. Of those living in poverty, over 800 million...

IFN Correspondent Reports

  • Takaful & re-Takaful (Africa)

    The Shariah non-compliance risk in Takaful undertakings

    The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in Nigeria has taken the risk management policy in Takaful undertakings into its consideration. The Shariah non-compliance risk is unique to Takaful undertakings as compared with their conventional counterparts. It can be defined as a breach of Shariah rules and principles that may render contracts invalid under Shariah law, deprive...

  • Russia

    Popularization of Islamic financial model in Russia raises several severe challenges

    While Russia is preparing to adopt a law starting with an experiment on the introduction of Islamic finance in four Muslim regions, more challenges and problems arise that need to be solved urgently. The first unresolved issue is Shariah control. Which state body will be responsible in Russia for the development of standards and procedures...

  • Malaysia

    Revised Budget Madani 2023: Islamic finance to drive sustainable development

    The new coalition government, which was formed after Malaysia experienced its first-ever hung parliament in an election deadlock in November 2022, tabled the revised Budget 2023 (Budget Madani) on the 24th February. Of the RM388.1 billion (US$87.9 billion) allocated, a sum of RM289.1 billion (US$65.48 billion) was designated for operating expenditure and RM99 billion (US$22.42...

  • Islamic Fintech

    The potential for ChatGPT to boost Islamic finance

    Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT no longer requires any introduction. Its ability to provide detailed long-form responses to virtually any prompt represents significant triumphs of natural language processing and machine learning. This AI milestone leads to the question: in which areas of Islamic finance can the application of AI create the most benefit? Three practical...

  • Indonesia    

    Green Shariah investments in Indonesia: A necessity or just following a trend?

    Indonesia is the country that issued the first two green Sukuk in the world. Firstly, sovereign green Sukuk with a value of US$1.25 billion in 2018, and secondly, green retail Sukuk with a value of IDR1.46 trillion (US$96.32 million) in 2019. Both products were issued by the Indonesian government. The sovereign green Sukuk were for...


IFN Special Reports

IFN FINTECH LANDSCAPE

IFN Supplements