INDONESIA - BANKING - Contributions Still Small, Danamon Syariah Defer Spin Off Unit

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA --- Contribution Sharia (UUS) Bank Danamon to total assets that is still relatively little still about 1 percent. Therefore, Bank Danamon have not implemented the separation (spin off) UUS of the parent bank in 2012.

Assets of Bank Danamon UUS only around Rp 1.3 trillion. While the Bank's total assets reached Rp 136 trillion. "We'll just see the potential for spin off," said Director of Bank Danamon, Henry Ho, Tuesday (25/10).  (source)

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)