The Second Shari'ah-Compliant Finance Summit will be held on August 12-14 2008

The second Shari'ah-compliant Finance Summit will be held on August 12-14 to add momentum to the establishment and operation of Islamic banking in Mauritius.

The summit will feature a number of international CEO's who have backgrounds in Islamic banking and who come from strategy, business, process and technology backgrounds.

Team SYNthesis CEO, Tan Chee Peng says: “ The summit targets a selected audience of decision-makers from business and financial organisations. It will offer first hand personal knowledge of the products and services and also explain how it is viewed as commercially more advantageous than traditional banking methods.

There are three key elements to maintain growth in this sector. First, a need for increased investment in research and development. Second, training and certification to meet current shortage in the talent pool and last, a greater use of technology.”

The Managing Director of BOI , Raju Jaddoo, points out that Middle Eastern investors are looking for alternative investment opportunities. “They are not investing in US or in Europe because they feel that the housing market will fall further and they prefer to diversify to other markets. Qatar and Dubai have already expressed interest in investing in Mauritius and have asked us whether we have Islamic banking. This is a new market that we must explore,” he says.

Islamic banking will bring an alternative mode of banking offering its clients a higher degree of security by removing the whims of fluctuations in interest rates.

Peng says: “Islamic banking does not give interest rates like traditional banks. The banks invest the money deposited and in return you get a dividend that could be higher or lower than interest paid by a traditional bank. It brings an additional level of certainty in an uncertain market. A weakness of Islamic banking is perhaps, when interest rates go down, traditional banks lending rates may seem more appealing,” he adds.