The Top 25 country ranking of the Top 500 Islamic institutions clearly demonstrates that Iran, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia are by far the three largest countries providing Islamic finance, with Iran’s total amounting to $154.6bn of sharia-compliant assets (SCAs) accounting for 30.9% of the global aggregate total of $500.5bn.

The Islamic finance industry is rapidly evolving and expanding, with growth of banking assets estimated at $750bn and growing at a rate of 15% to 20% a year. Nabeel Shoaib explains.

Diversification by banks away from industry and into retail indicates Russia’s growing banking prowess.

How profitable are Islamic financial institutions? With Islamic instruments and different reporting standards in some cases, direct comparisons with traditional western interest-bearing instruments have often been difficult to make.

Brazil’s banks dominate the listing with their healthy assets and profitability, and Mexico also does well.

Mergers work through with little change and aggregate Tier 1 capital is up.

Our rankings reveal no evidence of a bursting Asian bubble as China, and India to a lesser extent, power onwards.

Our listing reveals that retail continues to drive banking sector growth, while low household credit levels remain enticing to western European institutions.

Following successful IPOs by ICBC and Bank of China in 2006, the two banks return to the gold and silver positions in this year’s listing. Terry Baker-Self reports.

The Banker launched its second annual Top 100 Chinese Banks listing in both English and Chinese on June 5 in Beijing. The event was attended by governor of The People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, who received his award as The Banker’s Central Banker of the Year 2007 in Asia, and by Pan Gongsheng, secretary of the board of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, who picked up the bank’s award for The Banker’s Deal of the Year 2007.