IIRA Upgrades Fiduciary Ratings of United Capital Bank, Sudan

MDEC Islamic Fintech Dialogue Report (2019)Halal, Islamic banking, Mal, Sadaqah, Shariah, Shariah compliant, Waqf, Zakat

Leveraging Islamic Fintech to Improve Financial InclusionHalal, Islamic banking, Mal, Murabaha, Sadaqah, Sukuk, Takaful, Waqf, Zakat

Malaysia Islamic Finance and Financial InclusionAmanah, Halal, Islam, Islamic banking, Musharakah, Riba, Sadaqah, Sukuk, Takaful, Waqf, Zakat, Usufruct, Participation, Provision, Sales, Unrestricted Investment Account

Fitch Ratings (Fitch) has affirmed the Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) of Saudi Arabia-based real estate company, Arabian Centres Company (ACC) at ‘BB+’, while revising the Outlook to Negative from Stable. In addition, Fitch has assigned ACC a National Long-Term Rating of ‘A-(sau)’ with a Stable Outlook, and a Long-Term Local Currency IDR of ‘BB+’ with a Negative Outlook. Fitch has also affirmed the ‘BB+’ unsecured rating and ‘BB+’ rating of Sukuk trust certificates issued through Arabian Centres Sukuk Limi...

Guan Chong, a Malaysian-based cocoa processor, has issued its first tranche worth MYR 300 million of Islamic medium-term notes (Sukuk Wakalah), on the 4th of December 2020, according to local media reports. The Sukuk Wakalah issuance has a seven-year tenure and a coupon rate of 3.84% per annum.  The tranche is part of Guan Chong’s MYR 800 million Sukuk Wakalah Programme, which was recently assigned a final rating of AA-IS with a Stable Outlook by Malaysian Rating Corporation. Proceeds of the issuance will be used to finance ge...

The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), part of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), has approved a USD 10 million Murabahah Financing Facility for Uzbekistan’s Joint Stock commercial bank Agrobank, in order to support private sector development via financial provision for local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country.  The Murabahah facility, which was implemented under a USD 500 million Framework Agreement that was signed between ITFC and Uzbekistan in January 2019, will support the import and pre-export...

Global asset and wealth manager Schroders, has launched a Shariah-compliant global equity fund to provide UK-domiciled investors a diversified investment strategy, according to media reports. The Islamic Global Equity Fund, which combines Shariah Law compliance with multi-factor investing, will seek to outperform its Dow Jones Islamic Market World benchmark over a period of three to five years and will be managed by the Schroders Systematic Investments (SSI) unit, which uses factor-based investing. The fund will be available for an ongoing charges figure of 0.55% to investors,...

The AA3/Stable rating of Jimah Energy Ventures’ (JEV) MYR 4.85 billion Senior Islamic Medium-Term Notes (IMTN) Facility (2005/2025) has been reaffirmed by RAM Ratings (RAM), based on the expectation that the company’s performance will remain satisfactory whilst generating solid cashflows.  According to RAM, JEV has seen the operations at its power plant improve during the period of review, with the plant’s rolling 365 unscheduled outage rate easing to 3.51% and 1.40%, at the end of December 2019 and August 2020, respectively. Thi...

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has issued an exposure draft (ED) proposing the specific requirements and guidance to promote more inclusive, innovative and sustainable microinsurance and microtakaful offerings under the existing Perlindungan Tenang (PT) initiative. PT, an initiative by the Government of Malaysia, aims to provide affordable and simple insurance services for all, and was launched by BNM in 2017. The main objective is to expand insurance and takaful solutions to the bottom 40% of households (B40) in the country, in pa...