BRUNEI - Brunei open to reviving Islamic bank in Phl

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM (via PLDT/Smart) – A Brunei company is open to reviving a dormant Islamic bank in the Philippines.

Secretary Herminio Coloma of the Presidential Communications Operations Office said here yesterday that officials of QAF Brunei Sdn Bhd Co. Ltd. are receptive to the idea of reviving the Al Amanah Islamic Bank that was under the Development Bank of the Philippines.

“We’re asking the support of Brunei in exploring the possible revival of Amanah bank and the response of his royal highness, the prince, is that this could be a vehicle in promoting the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East Asian Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) investment,” he said. (source)

PHILIPPINES - DBP to unload 44% stake in Amanah Islamic bank

MANILA, Philippines - The country’s only Islamic bank has been placed on the auction block in a bid to broaden its ownership and financial expertise.

As part of its five-year rehabilitation program, a 49 percent stake Al Amanah Islamic and Investment Bank of the Philippines (Amanah Islamic Bank) will be offered to interested parties, particularly to existing Islam-oriented financial institutions.

The sale would open up the bank to capital from the Middle East as well as Southeast Asia investors. It would facilitate the entry of Islamic banking expertise and technology. (full story)

PHILIPPINES - Opinion - Why not Islamic finance?

An efficient capital market is one where persons who require capital or financing and persons able to supply such requirements have free access to one another through a wide variety of financial instruments, publicly available information and, yes, even modes of transaction consistent with their religious and moral beliefs.

For centuries, the most familiar and traditional way of raising capital in the Western world has been through incurring debt. In a sense, the business of moneylending has been associated with one particular faith – that of the Jews to the extent that Shakespeare’s fictional Jewish character of Shylock in the “Merchant of Venice” has come to stereotype the cut-throat ethos associated with moneylending (“shylock” now being slang for a usurer).  (full story)