This year’s Islamic Finance News Qatar Dialogues was held on Wednesday, September 11, 2024, at the Wyndham Doha West Bay. It featured two dialogues and one roundtable discussion on trending issues in the Qatar financial space.
The first dialogue was titled “Driving Growth – Qatar’s Islamic Financial Market” and the speakers discussed key topics including the impact of NDS3 on financial markets, opportunities in the domestic Sukuk market, and the role of private capital.
They also spoke on sustainability-linked Sukuk, asset diversification, and regulatory support for the Islamic finance sector.
Panelists here included Dr Dalal Aassouli, Akber Khan, George Barakat, Hakan Ozyon, Henk Jan Hoogendoorn, and Munaf Usmani.
Moving on, the roundtable discussion featured leading experts Akber Khan, Hadi El-Kadi, Lee Irvine, Tahir Hayat Pirzada, and Walid Shalan as they discussed the “QAR500 million Estithmar Holding Sukuk case study”.
They shared insights into deal advisory, legal frameworks, treasury management, and financial strategies behind this significant issuance.
Dialogue two was the last conversation for the day, and the experts, Dr Ahmet Aysan, Lee Irvine, Nurein Mohamed, and Tahir Hayat Pirzada, addressed ‘The Growth of Islamic Banking in Qatar’.
They further explored key topics such as the role of NDS3 in promoting economic growth, the regulatory environment, liquidity management, and the impact of Qatar FinTech Hub on Shariah-compliant solutions.
Sharing insights gleaned from the event, Feras Al-Sarraj, (Qatar Finance Center’s Head of Asset Management, Financial Services Sector), lauded the dialogue and the team for a job well done.
He said, “It was great to attend this year’s Islamic Finance News Qatar Dialogues, and thank you to the organizers for hosting a high-impact gathering. Islamic Finance is a key pillar of Qatar’s NDS3 20230 strategy, and a sector growing at a CAGR of 9%. The attendees were a very healthy mix of policy makers, banks, allocators, and refreshingly University students.
“Below are my key takeaways from the event:
• Islamic Finance has grown beyond its traditional base and is a cornerstone of the growing sustainable finance movement.
• Currently it’s $4 Trillion, expected to grow to $6 Trillion by 2026, and $6.7 Trillion by 2027.
• Qatar is in the top 5 globally in terms of Islamic bank assets.
• QFC is helping to lead this effort on multiple fronts, with an unwavering commitment to grow and help innovate it (eg. Islamic derivatives) along with local stakeholders.
• Post World Cup 2022, Qatar’s economy continues to consolidate but still growing, albeit at a slower pace (slow motion is better than no motion!). For example, the recently announced $5 Billion Smaisma tourism project.
• Flurry of Sukuk issuances from local and regional corporates.
• Remarkable increase in the sophistication of local regional market players, and an increase in appetite for more complex transactions (not just plain vanilla ones).
• Potential upcoming monetary easing cycle (all eyes on US Fed next Wednesday) causing investor rush to lock in current yields.
• In Qatar, the local asset management base is dominated by Shariah investors (the largest fixed-income fund is a Sukuk one, and the largest ETF is a Shariah fund).
• Less focus on innovation, and more on shoring up the traditional platform first (for example there is only 1 money market fund locally while there should be 10), and along the way the opportunities for innovative enhancements will present themselves.
𝐒𝐔𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘: Islamic Finance is ultimately a socially responsible form of investment (SRI) and coupled with modern sustainability principles is a perfect fit for impact investing.
𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐀 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇 𝐅𝐎𝐑: AAOIFI Shariah Standard No 62, which can be a major disruptor to the Sukuk landscape. More here: https://lnkd.in/d6gcHTfq
