While investment banks in the US may have changed form recently, a large number of Islamic investment banks have been established in the Gulf, Malaysia and the UK and many of these new institutions are featured in The Banker’s Top 25 Islamic investment banks listing below.
The Top 500 listing, based on sharia-compliant assets (SCAs), is headed by Kuwait-based Investment Dar, the 28th largest institution listed, with SCAs of $4643.7m. Next are four Bahrain-based investment banks that are starting to have a strong economic impact on the region. These are: Ithmaar Bank, Arcapita Bank, Gulf Finance House and Bahrain Islamic Investment Company, with SCAs of $4078.8m, $3805.5m, $3507.8m and $1752.6m, respectively.
Demonstrating the importance of Bahrain as an Islamic investment banking hub, 12 of the leading 25 investment banks are based in Bahrain; four are in Kuwait and four are in Malaysia. Somewhat surprisingly, none of the leading Islamic investment banks are based in the United Arab Emirates.
Turning to Islamic insurance companies, the leaders are more diverse and come from a variety of countries. The listing is led by Iran Insurance Company, with SCAs of $1516m, followed by Syarikat Takaful Malaysia, which has $1015.5m.
While the top 10 insurance companies come from seven different countries, Iran and Malaysia each provided five firms in the leading 25 institutions, followed by the UAE with three, and Saudi Arabia with two. Although the bulk of the leading group come from Iran and the Gulf, most of the insurance firms are remarkably small. Only the top firms have SCAs of more than $100m, demonstrating that this industry clearly has a long way to grow.
