France: Promoting Islamic finance

The French government, anxious to attract some of the Gulf-based investment currently flowing to London, is promoting Islamic finance, offering it a more accommodating legal and fiscal framework in France.


Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, recently addressing Gulf investors, pledged to take steps "to make (their) activities as welcome in Paris as they are in London and elsewhere."


Analyst Emmanuel Volland of the ratings agency Standard and Poor's noted that this was "the first time that a representative of the state has said publicly that she is favourable to the development of Islamic finance.


"It's a strong signal and the players are listening."


But at another agency, Moody's, Anwar Hassan, cautioned that government pronouncements "are not in themselves sufficient to ensure the blossoming of Islamic finance here".


He said the government should not be content simply to reduce "legal or fiscal irritants" but should - for example - issue Islamic bonds, known as "sukuks," as Britain plans to do next year.


The challenge is also not purely technical or limited to establishing an infrastructure receptive to Islamic finance, he said, adding that convincing the French public of the soundness of such investments would be the real test.


The task, he argued, was to show that they are "an ethical, modern finance alternative."


Islamic law proscribes the paying of interest for a service as well as speculation, and prohibits investment in sectors such as pornography, gambling, weaponry, alcohol or pork products.


Hassan warned too that investors in the Gulf or Malaysia might see France's current interest as simply trying to "make sure that some of the oil wealth gets recycled in France."


Islamic finance, a market estimated to be worth USD 700 billion (EUR 441 billion), does exist to some extent in France already.


The leading Gulf investment funds, Gulf Finance House, Qatar Islamic Bank, Barwa Real Estate or Quinvest, currently have offices in the Paris suburbs.


Hassan noted that the establishment of an investment fund, compatible with Islamic law, in the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion by the bank Societe Generale "could attract savings from French Muslims."


Societe Generale has said it has no plans to set up a comparable operation in metropolitan France.


Eventually the offer of Islamic bonds could provide an alterative to French companies currently penalised by increasingly costly bank credit.


For the moment, however, France does not offer Islamic banking services, despite having the largest Muslim community in western Europe.


In Britain, the Islamic Bank of Britain was launched in 2004, the first such institution in Europe. About 20 traditional banks in Britain also offer Islamic banking services.


But Mohamed Damak of Standard and Poor's cautioned that the profile of the Muslim community in France is different from that of Britain.


"It seems to favour the transparency of conventional banking," he said, adding that it was "simplistic to think that because there are twice as many Muslims in France as in Britain, that the demand is going to be the same."



Source: Expatica (English)

See also: France: Paris as center of Islamic finance

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I apologize for the copy-paste job, but Brigitte Gabriel said it best:

We receive many emails asking us for a list of banks participating in Sharia finance. We urge you to visit this website. It lists financial institutions here and around the world and the latest information on Sharia finance.

http://shariahfinancewatch.wordpress.com/shariah-compliant-banks/

Shariah Compliant Banks

Alpha Natural ResourcesAsset Acceptance Capital Corporation
Aviva Plc
AXA
Barclays PLC
BNP Paribas Group
Citibank, N.A.
Credit Agricole, S.A.
Deutsche Bank AG
Dow Jones & Company Inc.
Equity Insurance Group Limited
Goldman Sachs Group
HBOS plc
HSBC Holdings plc
INVESCO Perpetual
Julius Baer Group
Maersk Logistics
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
Morgan Stanley
NYSE Euronext
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Singapore Power

National Security and Financial Risks: Islamists are attempting to impose Shariah Compliant Finance (SCF) on Western institutions to use our own financial strengths against us. The most serious problem with SCF is that it legitimates and institutionalizes Shariah law (i.e., Islamic law), a theo-political- legal doctrine violently opposed to Western values. With $1 -$2 trillion petrodollars annually looking for an investment home, blind exuberance is driving financial institutions to adopt SCF, without even a minimal baseline for legal compliance. This willful blindness, and lack of both transparency and due diligence may cause SCF to be the next sub-prime crisis, but this time with deadly consequences.

Legal Risks: Western financial institutions which adopt SCF may have criminal and civil exposure to claims of aiding and abetting sedition and the material support of terrorism, securities fraud, consumer fraud, racketeering, and antitrust violations, as well as exposure to tort claims for sedition and terrorism, and for the violation of internationally recognized norms of the law of nations.

Terror Financing Mechanism: SCF as monitored by paid Shariah law advisors to U.S. banking institutions must “purify” certain return on investment (ROI) dollars that do not meet Shariah law standards. This money must be donated to Islamic charities - including some that promote Jihad and support suicide bombing. Investment disclosures state that these profits can be as high as 6% of profits of investments. With $800 billion already in SCF assets, the potential for billions of dollars to be siphoned off for terrorism is real. This would be a serious criminal violation of U.S. law.

Consider this example: Shariah Mutual Funds promote themselves as “ethical funds.” To be Shariah-compliant, they donate “tainted” revenues to Shariah-compliant “charities.” A post 9-11 U.S. investor in a Shariah-compliant “ethical investment” is not told that Shariah law also requires imposing Shariah as U.S. law, execution of gays and female apartheid. Is he a victim of consumer fraud? Is this same post 9-11 investor unwittingly funding terror? The government has shut down the three largest Shariah-compliant charities in the U.S. - the Holy Land Foundation, Benevolence International Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation - after proving they funded terrorist organizations. The American taxpayer deserves answers to these questions. The Center for Security Policy (CSP) is meeting directly with members of Congress, U.S. regulatory agencies and Wall Street financial institutions in order to ensure the enforcement of existing U.S. laws on sedition, disclosure, material support of terrorism, and money-laundering. CSP is committed to revealing the civil liability and criminal exposure of Shariah law and Shariah-compliant finance.

WHAT IS SHARIAH LAW?
Understanding Shariah law is integral to understanding the dangers of Shariah-compliant finance. Shariah law is Islamic law dating back to the 7th century and is today the law of the land in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and the law under which the Taliban operates. Recent polls reveal that only 10-15% of Muslims worldwide want to live under this all-encompassing system of Islamic jurisprudence that covers all aspects of a Muslim’s life including religious, social, political, and military obligations. However, with a current population of 1.5 billion Muslims, this translates to a huge pool of Jihadist recruits and supporters - a base of approximately 150 - 225 million Muslims. Shariah law authorities, some of whom are now being paid handsomely by Barclays, Dow Jones, Standard & Poors, HSBC, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Deutschebank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Credit Suisse and others have the power to dictate Shariah compliance as deemed by “scholarly consensus” on matters of finance, family, penal law, apostasy, and war. Examples of authoritarian Shariah law include: requirement of women to obtain permission from husbands for daily freedoms; beating of disobedient woman and girls; execution of homosexuals; engagement of polygamy and forced child marriages; the testimony of four male witnesses to prove rape; honor killings of those, principally women, who have dishonored the family; death to apostate Muslims who chose to leave Islam; inferior status of non-Muslims, and capital punishment for those “slander Islam.”


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