Strong competition in the local market from both takaful and conventional players has made recent years challenging for Kuwait’s sharia-compliant insurers. The performance of dedicated takaful providers in 2010 was mixed, with gains by players such as National Takaful and Ain Takaful (which grew their premiums by 17.4% and 58.7%, respectively)...
Did Islamic financial institutions emerge from the global financial crisis in a stronger position than their conventional counterparts?
Nearly two-thirds of the investment spending identified in the country’s five-year development plan, some KD20bn ($72.1bn), has been earmarked for the oil sector. The expenditure of these funds is largely geared towards expanding production capacity from around 3.15m barrels per day (bpd) to 3.5m bpd by 2015 and 4m bpd by 2020. This investment could...
What can be done to stimulate lending in Kuwait and boost local exposure in international markets?
The insurance industry is going through a transition in the post-slowdown environment. In a business climate where investment returns are less favourable and more difficult to predict, there is a renewed focus on the fundamentals. “The market is still evolving to address economic realities that emerged after the global financial crisis,” Oommen John...
While business activities undertaken according to the principles of Islamic law, or sharia, have been a feature of the Gulf region for over a millennium, recent years have seen the emergence of a modern Islamic financial services (IFS) sector that has established itself as an important component of regional economies. Kuwait is no exception. Its...
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