Bahrain Financial Services

Bahrain’s sharia-compliant financial institutions enter 2017 after weathering the tumultuous economic environment and changing regulatory landscape of the previous year. Despite the challenges, the kingdom’s Islamic banks continue to expand in the domestic market and beyond, while activity in the newly reinforced sharia-compliant insurance sector is well positioned to continue along a...

The region’s exchanges have operated in adverse economic conditions since the decline of oil prices began in the second half of 2014, and the Bahrain Bourse is no exception. However, the apparent stabilisation of global oil prices in 2016 has brought a similar firming of the main index and, after a year of shrinking stock prices, some increasingly attractive valuations. The larger story of...

Bahrain’s banking sector has managed two years of a challenging low oil-price environment without seeing significant deterioration in its financial stability indicators. Conventional lenders and Islamic financiers operating within the kingdom’s famously robust regulatory framework have also managed to maintain profitability throughout this period thanks to efficiency drives and continued...

For decades Bahrain has been home to one of the GCC’s most developed insurance sectors, with domestic and international firms taking advantage of the country’s robust yet accommodating regulatory structure to pursue business both locally and in rapidly emerging regional markets. Some 25 locally incorporated insurers operate in Bahrain, with a further 22 locally incorporated firms restricted to...

As a pioneer in Islamic finance regulations and the home of some of the most important standard- setting institutions in the global sharia-compliant arena, Bahrain is at the forefront of the international Islamic financial services industry. In 2001 Bahrain became the first country in the world to implement regulations specific to Islamic banking. Since then the Central Bank of Bahrain’s...