LONDON: It is not very often that the British Crown has recognized services rendered in the UK Islamic finance industry. The fact that Richard Thomas, CEO of Gatehouse Bank, was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in the recent Birthday Honors list of Queen Elizabeth II, in recognition for civic excellence and the contribution that Thomas has made to the UK Islamic financial services industry, shows how far the industry has come..
Gatehouse Bank, which is a subsidiary of Securities House Kuwait, is one of the four wholesale Shariah-compliant banks incorporated in London and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the others being Bank of London and Middle East, European Islamic Investment Bank and Qatar Islamic Bank UK.
Richard Thomas maintained that “this award will help motivate the emerging community of UK specialists who are looking to advance the growth of Islamic finance and see its increasing potential to develop not only regional but cross-border experience in international transaction activity. I am pleased to see the UK emerge as a center for Islamic finance in the past decade. Although we have not reached the heights of development in the GCC or Malaysia, the UK offers a level of expertise and a strong financial infrastructure to complement the services provided by our regional neighbors.”
Gatehouse Bank itself is undergoing a strategic restructuring part of which will see the evolution of a new value-added platform offering a unique range of Islamic financial products which in general are not yet in the market place in the Middle East and in Europe.
There are currently 22 banks in the UK, of which five are standalone Shariah-compliant banks, offering Islamic finance products, exceeding that of any other Western country. There were five sukuk [Islamic bonds] listings at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in 2010 and one in early 2011, bringing the aggregate total at the LSE to 31 listings worth $18 billion. Islamic funds managed in the UK have combined assets of $300 million.
The global Islamic finance market grew by 10% in 2009 to $1,041 billion and TheCityUK estimates that the global market for Islamic finance grew at a similar rate in 2010.
The UK is currently the leading Western country and Europe's premier center for Islamic finance with $19 billion of reported assets, largely based on activity by Shariah-compliant banks.
Source: Arab News, Saudi Arabia, June 20, 2011. Changes were made in keeping with the editorial policy of www.memrieconomicblog.org
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