The Anglosphere and Islamic Banking

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London, Center of the International Islamic Banking

Minuto Digital
May 23, 2005

Which is the biggest bank in the world which operates following the Islamic criteria?

According to the information that one can gather in the website of the Islamic integrism in Spain, webislam.com, and although it sounds incredible, the North American Citigroup, the first banking group in the World. Then, is New York the financial center of Islam? No. That role belongs to London. So it is revealed by a detailed study which has been spread through the Internet, which tells that 15% of the funds managed each year by the big western banks in London is of Muslim origin.

In London, a great number of Islamic operations take place daily chanalized with preference through Citigroup, HSBC (formerly Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation), Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, or ABN Amro.

Despite the fact that the Sharia, like the Talmud, prohibits the Muslim companies to engage into financial speculation, usure is by-passed through introducing the concept of co-participation --mud'araba-- in financial risks and profits, i.e., another deceit in the long list that we are already used to see.

We must also hilight the recent creation of the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB), founded in november 2004, and which the 80% of its social capital (100 million USD) belongs to personalities of the Persian Gulf. IBB is the first Islamic bank in Europe, created to attend the needs of its Muslim customers. The headquarters of the bank are in the Edgware Rd., in the heart of of London. The board of directors of IBB is dominated by British financeers, with no obvious link with Islam. Ever since it opened, the bank has attracted a big number of customers from the United Kingdom and abroad, who probably don't know what hides after that trading acronym, since they use the abbreviation of IBB and not the full name of the bank. IBB started activities with an initial capital of 14 million GBP. Later they injected another 40 million GBP.

In the words of the director of opperations of IBB, Michael Nalon, "we do not trade with money, but we offer physical goods and services to our customners."

From information that has arrived to MinutoDigital, the bank will start to function on the Internet and to offer mortgages this year. The working hours in the bank are identical to those of a normal bank, except on Fridays when it closes between the 13.00 and 15.00 hours to allow its employees to go praying to the mosque.

Last september it took place the International Forum of the Islamic Finances in Stambul, which was attended by tens of Islamic financial entities. Key figures in the field of the Economy of over 50 countries attended the event. Among the issues discussed in it there was the legal regulation of the Islamic banks in the West and in the Muslim countries, especially Turkey, where Islamic banking has flourished in the late years.


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