RUSSIA - Indonesia shares experience in Islamic banking

The training of economists and bankers from Russia on various aspects of Islamic banking began on June 13, 2011, in Jakarta, in the Islamic bank Bank Muamalat Indonesia (BMI).

On the first day of the training, BMI Head of International Relations department, Mr. Farouk Alvini, welcomed the Russian delegation and informed them of the recent performance of the bank. Particularly, he noted that BMI is the second largest Islamic bank in Indonesia with the asset growth of 30% per year. (source)

RUSSIA - Interview with Madina Kalimullina, Director of Economic Department of Russia Muftis Council

Ms. Madina, as expert in the sphere of theory and practice of Islamic economy, how do you estimate the level of Islamic Finance development in our country? 

For a long time, the Russian market featured a substantial uncertainty with regard to Islamic finance. In 3-4 years period after the revocation of the license from a well-known project "Badr-Forte Bank" and closure of «Manzil» project that was dealing with the financing of real estates purchase, the market has gathered enough information and interest in Islamic finance. Still, there was no project, probably except for BrokerCreditService's mutual fund "Halal", which unfortunately was launched at the beginning of the last financial crisis. I neither give as example payment card projects as they do not reflect the essence and content of Islamic finance. It should be noted as well that lots of projects were announced, but most of them were never launched so far. In my opinion, there is a reasonable explanation for that.(full story)