New players are spread from Malaysia to the Gulf (which is providing most of the new faces) to the UK; but Syria, Kenya, Botswana and Egypt are also growth areas.
This year’s list is made up of 47 entrants, dating back to the beginning of 2007. It is broken into 18 active institutions with sharia-compliant assets and 29 institutions that have not yet disclosed their figures.
The list is led by Malaysia’s Maybank Islamic Berhad, which was formed in January, and has sharia-compliant assets (SCAs) of $7755.1m. Kuwait International Bank, established in July 2007, comes in second with SCAs of $3269.4m.
Malaysia and Kuwait are the leading providers of new entrants, producing eight and seven new institutions respectively. Of these, Malaysia has four institutions among the leading 10 entrants: Maybank, Alliance Islamic Bank, Alliance Bank Malaysia and Al Rajhi Banking & Investment (Malaysia). Most of the Kuwait entrants do not have figures readily available.
Since June 2007, three new Islamic institutions have been established in the UK – Bank of London and the Middle East, European Finance House and Gatehouse Bank, which have generated SCAs of $1196.3m, $94.1m and $15.2m respectively.
Other countries with significant new entrants include Bahrain with eight institutions led by Ahli United Bank, the United Arab Emirates with five institutions led by Dubai Bank, and Pakistan and Syria, each with three institutions led by Emirates Global Islamic Bank and Cham Bank, respectively.
