GCC Islamic Finance

Executive Summary

The traditional system of Islamic finance based on the principles of Sharia emerged as recently as in the 1970s. From being a concept popular only in the countries with Muslim-majority population, such as the Middle East and Malaysia in the 1980s and the 1990s, Islamic finance has expanded significantly in size and presence over the past decade. More particularly for the GCC region, a variety of factors have contributed in the growth of Islamic finance industry like growing GDP, improving economic environment, increasing oil prices, rising middle class society, the perception of Islamic finance being a relatively 'risk-averse' system and most importantly increased awareness of the concept of Islamic Finance. In this report we provide details about the size and growth of the GCC Islamic finance industry along with Global Islamic Finance Industry.

 The report includes performance of key GCC Islamic finance institutions. The report provides details of GCC region wise split, trends and outlook for individual segments of GCC Islamic Finance like Islamic Banking, Sukuk, Takaful and Islamic Mutual Funds. The report also discusses some other types of GCC Islamic Finance Products, growth drivers for GCC Islamic Finance, regulatory framework and challenges for GCC Islamic finance.