The Bahrain Monetary Agency (BMA) recently awarded licenses to four banking and investment institutions to commence operations in the Kingdom. Subsidiary of the Swiss UBS Group, Noriba Bank has been granted an investment license for providing banking services in accordance to Sharia principles. The Kuwait Finance House’s Liquidity Management Centers (LMC), the Bahrain Islamic Bank and the Islamic Development Bank have also been granted similar investment licenses.
Bahrain is the host of the largest concentration of Islamic banks and other financial institutions in the Middle East. It is one of the few countries that allow both conventional and Sharia based transactions. The Kingdom’s has approximately 173 traditional banks, both domestic and foreign. In 2000, there were 12 Islamic investment banks and two Islamic offshore banking units in the country. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
