8/3/2019 ITSSharieaComplaince

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Haitham Abdou, director o marketingand product strategy or the ITS group, thebiggest supplier o Islamic banking solutionsin the world, conessed he was shocked toread Pope Benedict praising Islams bankersin the pages o the ofcial Vatican newspaper.However, Abdou said, the article convincedhim that Islamic banking is now ready ora rebranding as ethical banking, a systemthat could fnd new customers in the westernworld and elsewhere, as well as its traditionalhome in the Islamic world.

Pope Benedict urged the western com-munity to look at the Islamic banking modelbecause o its ethical principles, to restoreconfdence amongst their clients at a timeo global economic crisis, Mr Abdou says.It was really quite shocking to me to readsuch a thing coming rom the pope, but thatswhat led me to believe that Islamic bankingis crossing the religious boundaries and beingseen as an ethical business model.

The new ocus on Islamic banking in thewest comes just as ITS prepares or a globalroll-out o its latest suite o banking solu-tions, called, but no coincidence, Ethix.

The name is not just a reminder o the eth-ical basis o Islamic banking principles, withtheir reusal to allow usury, the charging ointerest, but a hint, although Mr Abdou istoo polite to say so, that western banking hasnot necessarily been that ethical recently.

Top Tier

ITS was established back in 1981, in Kuwait,where it was (and still is, mainly) ownedhouse. So because o their needs, our mainocus rom the beginning was supplying solu-tions or Islamic banking, Mr Abdou says.He joined the company 13 years ago, andswitly rose up rom being a programmer, an-alyst, designer, project manager and productstrategist. Three years ago he moved into thecommercial side and is now director.

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part o the world. In the past couple o yearsweve started to grow into Arica, and intothe Far East rom Malaysia to the Philip-pines. Our core expertise is in Islamic bank-ing, but we also supply into the conventionalbanking industry as well. We have a lot othe tier one banks as customers; we supplyconventional banks in Arica, in Nigeria andSouth Arica, Mr Abdou says.

Conventional Western banks are lookingto open up Islamic windows, especially withthe global banking crisis. Islamic bankingsaw a boom starting a couple o years agoand we eel its been growing at about 15 to20 percent here and globally and we dont seethat slowing down.

Islamic banking started in the Middle Eastprobably because o the religious side othings, Mr Abdou says, and then as westerncountries started to see the business modelo Islamic banking they started to realise theattraction o sharing the risk with the con-sumer, so banks get more involved. The sec-tor is now in a transitional period where theboundaries o religion are dropping; Islamicfnance is now perceived as an alternative f-nancial model rather than just targeting theMuslim community specifcally.

Weve seen some o the tier one bankssuch as HSBC, Citibank, Citibank, abn amro,all established Islamic windows in their op-erations. Weve seen in London, or example,ofcial regulations covering Islamic bankshave been brought in by the fnancial servicesagency in the past ew years and there are fveor six opened there now, Mr Abdou says.

France has issued licenses or the estab-lishment o Islamic fnancial organisations. Inmy discussions with US regulators, the Islam-ic ront end side o things, thats where wevedeveloped our own products. We are lookinginto the legality and regulations o the Islamicmodel, and i have started to see many coner-ences being held in north America. Theres a

global trend in the industry.

[[1C]]World Finance | Jan - Feb 2011

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