MALAYSIA - Malaysia's Zarinah Anwar calls for greater GCC-Asian connectivity

LONDON: Zarinah Anwar, chairman of the Securities Commission of Malaysia, the securities and capital market regulator, has called on Middle Eastern and Asian countries to spearhead the further expansion of Islamic finance, which in the process would also deepen business and investment linkages between the two regions where the phenomenon is already being practiced on a significant scale. (source)

BANKING - Elaf Bank Expansion to RI

Elaf will fund a number of projects and work with BMI.

JAKARTA-Islamic Bank began financing Elaf independent debut in Indonesia. Elaf Bank was appointed lead arranger for fundraising reached 84 million through the issuance of sukuk offshore for financing a number of projects in the country. 

In the work samatersebut, Precious International Advisory (PIA) was appointed as financial advisors. From the results of the issuance of sukuk, funds amounting to 62 million US dollars will be used by Java Energy Universe (JES) to finance the construction of gas compression station project and table in the three regions. (full story)

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.