FINANCIAL MARKETS - Bahrain's Elaf Bank eyes Asian sukuk market

ISLAMIC FINANCE Elaf Bank obtained a banking licence in Malaysia at the end of last year and sees more opportunity for the company in the East (source)

FINANCE - Sukuk market will bounce back over the next two years

ELAF Bank is a wholesale Islamic bank incorporated in Bahrain in 2007. Its shareholders include Aref Investment Group of Kuwait; Kuwait Investment Company (KIC); Sukuk Holding Company; Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), the private sector funding arm of the Islamic Development Bank; and Qatar Islamic Bank.

It started with the original objective of developing a secondary market in sukuk and to be a market maker. In fact its original name was the cumbersome Sukuk Exchange Central Bank. But the oncoming global financial crisis forced the bank to retreat into more vanilla investment banking to generate enough income to cover its expenses and to prepare for the recovery in the market in 2010-2011.

BANKING - Bahrain's Elaf eyes Malaysian sharia banking licence (and eyes Indonesia too)

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Bahrain's Elaf Bank has applied for a Malaysian Islamic banking licence after securing six financing deals worth about $1.4 billion in the country and Indonesia, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

The licence would enable Elaf to execute the deals and conduct other dollar-denominated Islamic banking business and the bank hopes to hear from the authorities on its application in the next two weeks, Jamil El Jaroudi said.

"It'll be finding our steps into this country here," El Jaroudi said on the sidelines of an Islamic banking forum in the Malaysian capital.