"We have been watching the whole scenario of active and passive fund management and have been working with a lot of interest on the development of an absolute return fund," said Denison, who also made sure to include that it was in no way a hedge fund, but a reliable way of producing a Shariah-based strategy to positively produce an absolute return regardless of the direction of the market," he said, adding that they hope to open it in the next few months.

In addition, Denison said that the bank, which has its own Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB), has been doing quite well since opening just 3 years ago and has been providing Islamic investment and finance services to the 15 million Muslim population in Western Europe, as well as customers in Turkey. He also explained that the bank's customer base includes people of all faiths who want a trustworthy place to bank.

"All we do is Islamic finance and currently have five divisions of private banking, corporate advisory, corporate banking, asset management, and markets. We don't do retail banking but have had customers of various faiths who are looking for ethical banking services. Other people have customers who are Muslims and use our services because they must comply with Shariah. We also have non-Muslims who have come to us just because we are a bank and because our financing options and prices were superior over other banks, making our customer bases three-fold," he said.

Marking its one-year anniversary in July, the first European launched Shariah-compliant money market fund, the Shariah Dollar Income Fund has been bringing in returns of just over 30 basis points or 3 percent over the past year, according to Denison.

The fund seeks to achieve a high degree of security and return by investing in a portfolio of money market tools such as sukuk and Murabaha. "We had initially been looking for a return of 100 basis points or 10 percent but due to global financial crisis, expect the yields to normalize raising in the near future to our previous estimated target," he said.

Explaining the method used to design their financial products, Dension said, "We are trying to build our products around what a family business might look like, while catering to those businesses and other individuals. Currently we see that the property market is a big market to invest in as a majority of people and investors are doing business around property in one form or another. Many people in the Middle East are looking to buy property on the UK while also maintaining their homes and lifestyle in the Middle East. We want to be seen as a reliable bank in the UK that can offer these customers the trust of Shariah-based financial products that they would get back home," Denison said.

He added that the bank currently has predominantly Kuwaiti shareholders and would someday like to build a presence in the Kingdom, possibly partnering with National Bank of Kuwait or another partner. "Certainly with Saudi Arabia as the largest economy in the region we would have to consider opening a branch in Saudi Arabia at some point after the bank grows more," he said.

Dension continued by saying that the reason he feels that the bank is doing so well is that it is fully Shariah- based and does not merely provide, "a window of Islamic products," while trying to utilize conventional finance principles to turn a profit.

"It is because of this that BLME has developed a trustworthy reputation both in Europe and the Middle East and are well-known for providing transparency, a fair deal, and a reliable profit margin because we took the time to develop proper Islamic finance products and services," he said.

Speaking about the progression of the unified GCC currency, Denison said he and other BLME officials had met with the vice governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) in Riyadh, who said that they were progressing slowly toward the development of the currency and are doing so in order to make sure all aspects are properly dealt with before the launch.

"They said that they were currently watching the global economy and what was going on with Greece and other European as well as US markets because of the region's peg to the dollar. In addition, SAMA said that they realized that since Saudi Arabia was the largest economy in the GCC that they would be the ones making the general decisions. Also with the Central Bank location set for Riyadh they know if there are any errors that they would ultimately be responsible for paying for them because of their economic position in the region; therefore I think they are right to move slowly into the unified currency while getting all the elements right," he said.