Islamic Financial Services
From The Report: Abu Dhabi 2017
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Abu Dhabi’s sharia-compliant finance sector, traditionally led by its Islamic banking industry, has expanded to include an increasing array of activities in areas such as insurance offerings and asset management. An environment of low oil prices has put pressure on margins in 2016 but, with nearly a quarter of assets in the UAE held by sharia-compliant institutions, the industry is firmly entrenched and well positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities as they arise.

This chapter contains an interview with Tirad Al Mahmoud, CEO, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank.

Articles from this Chapter

Overview

Dynamic growth: A competitive landscape gives way to strong domestic performers
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Abu Dhabi’s sharia-compliant finance sector, traditionally led by its Islamic banking industry, has expanded to include an increasing array of activities in areas such as insurance offerings and asset management. An environment of low oil prices has put pressure on margins in 2016 but, with nearly a quarter of assets in the UAE held by sharia-compliant institutions, the industry is firmly entrenched and well positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities as they arise. Financing Recent…

Interview

Look to history: Tirad Al Mahmoud, CEO, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, on boosting the competitiveness of the Islamic financial services sector
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Interview: Tirad Al Mahmoud What steps are Islamic banks taking to confront the new reality of lower oil prices? TIRAD AL MAHMOUD: History is a sequence of events that tend to be repeated from time to time. Those who are lucky enough to recognise that an event is about to repeat itself are a lot more prepared to deal with the same challenge when it crops up again. The decline in oil prices and the challenging global economic environment are good examples of this. They may not be happening again…

Analysis

Follow the leader: Islamic finance in the country is moving towards a central oversight board to gain further standardisation
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The rapidly expanding Islamic finance industry is still a relatively new component of the world economic system. The regulatory frameworks that govern it, therefore, show a high degree of variation from one jurisdiction to the next. Almost all of them, however, fall within two broad models: a centralised system, with some form of higher sharia authority to issue regulations, or a self-regulation model, where Islamic finance institutions turn to their own sharia supervisory boards (SSBs) for…