JEDDAH, 7 April 2005 — Deutsche Bank AG has launched a series of educational seminars throughout the Middle East to highlight the need for greater innovation in the Islamic finance sector.
Islamic finance has become one of the world’s fastest growing sectors as investors show an increasing appetite for a variety of Islamic financial instruments.
At meetings in Riyadh on Monday and Dubai on Tuesday, leading Islamic scholars from the Dar Al-Istithmar (DI), a leading Shariah think-tank and joint venture with Deutsche Bank, presented their views on the role of innovation in developing new Shariah compliant products.
The speakers included, Dr. Humayon Dar, secretary of DI and a leading Islamic economist; Dr. Basil Mustafa, fellow of the Oxford Institute for Islamic Studies, and Dr. Mohammed Elgari, professor of Islamic banking at the Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance.
“The growth of the Islamic finance sector in recent years has been phenomenal but the variety of Shariah investment products currently available to Muslim investors is a fraction of what it could be, and a fraction of what is offered by conventional instruments,” Dr. Dar said.
“Innovation is the key to closing the gap between Islamic finance and the sophisticated conventional finance market. Dar Al-Istithmar provides a powerful combination of financial know-how and access to an experienced group of Islamic economists to provide innovative, Shariah compliant investment products. Our aim is to offer Muslim investors a much broader range of investment options with more liquidity and transparency than is currently available in Islamic finance,” he said.
DI is a highly positioned Shariah think-tank and joint venture between Deutsche Bank, Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, and Russell Wood Ltd., a renowned adviser on investment structures in the Middle East.
“Deutsche Bank is fully committed to providing a greater choice of financial solutions to Muslim investors,” Geert Bossuyt, managing director, Investment Products Group, Deutsche Bank, said commenting on the new range of products under development. This range will cover all asset classes and offer investors a much greater level of liquidity, in fact daily liquidity, than currently offered by other Islamic funds, he added.
Our products will also introduce a new level of transparency to the industry; through the use of the Bank’s or even third parties’ established benchmarks.
Deutsche Bank also held a seminar in Kuwait yesterday. It gives a presentation in Bahrain today and will move to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei and Geneva.
