Murabaha Share Finance: Part 1

In my career, I have been in the position where I had to create Shariah compliant structures to enable transactions to take place. This has been perhaps the most interesting (and challenging) aspect of my work, for several reasons. First of all, I have always enjoyed solving problems, whether it is a crossword, logic puzzles, trying to play chess and so on. I am very fortunate that I was made responsible for finding solutions to problems and puzzles in banking too.

Before specialising in Islamic banking, I had worked in the area of exotic derivatives. This involved creating quite complex transactions from building blocks with a view to delivering a solution to clients. At the same time, I had to understand very well the consequent risk that the bank was taking on (as a result of s...