| Financial Islam - Islamic Finance |
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 A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate international cooperation between the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in promoting the development of Islamic finance in common developing member countries was signed today at the ADB headquarters in Manila. Add Comment  Financial institutions based in the United Kingdom on Thursay called on the Philippine government to enact laws and rules that would allow Islamic finance (IF), explaining that the country stands to gain from over $1 trillion in global funds on tap.
According to British Ambassador Stephen Lillie, Islamic finance is very much relevant to the Philippines and that there “is potentially a big opportunity.”  Islamic finance could provide some of the multi-billion-dollar loans needed by Asia to pay for $US8 trillion in infrastructure costs over the next decade, says ratings agency Standard and Poor's (S&P).
Islamic financing is a growing source of loans worldwide and is now a better way to fund huge Asian infrastructure deals than banks, S&P says in a new report.  A Muslim body backed by the Philippines government wants Middle East investors to take a stake in the country's sole sharia lender to help kickstart its Islamic banking industry.
Gulf investors can provide the needed capital to Al-Amanah Islamic Bank, which aims to accelerate the socio-economic development of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, said Datu Tahir Lidasan Jr, a director with the National Commission for Muslim Filipinos. The Philippines’ state-owned Al- Amanah Islamic Bank may sell the nation’s first Shariah- compliant bonds to finance development in Muslim Mindanao, the poorest region and base of Abu Sayyaf separatist militants.
“There’s a lot of money in the market for sukuk that we can tap,” Al-Amanah President Armando Samia, whose bank is the only one in the Philippines with a mandate to sell Islamic notes, said in an interview yesterday. “We’re still in the very exploratory stage. Getting the first one out is difficult.” | 
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