Regulators are encouraging mergers and acquisitions in Bahrain’s Islamic banking industry in a bid to cement the country’s position as one of the world’s leading sharia-compliant financial centres. At the end of 2016 the governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) repeated calls for the country’s Islamic lenders – of which there are...
Within the spectrum of Islamic financial services (IFS), project financing has been one of the slower segments to develop. Historically, the reason for this has been the cost differential between conventional project financing and its sharia-compliant counterpart. In the past, conventional tenors also tended to be longer – up to 20 years for...
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...
While low oil prices continue to limit the region’s – and in particular Bahrain’s – economic growth, non-oil growth appears to be generally resilient. Bahrain’s real GDP growth in the first half of 2016 reached 3.5% year-on-year (y-o-y), while the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) forecast growth in 2016 would slow to 2.8%. Non-oil GDP...
As investors open up to this alternative investment class, real estate investment trusts (REITs) are gradually gaining traction within the GCC. In 2016 we saw the listing – but not an initial public offering (IPO) – of Riyad REIT at Tadawul, as well as the IPO of Eskan Bank REIT, which completed its offering on December 6, 2016 and listed on...
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