Al Baraka Islamic Bank BSC (C) and Bahrain Bourse signed an agreement allowing the Bank to buy and sell Shariah-complaint Ijara Sukuk through Bahrain Bourse, which will contribute to facilitating the Bank’s financing operations for its underlying clients.
The agreement aims to diversify the commodities available for underlying clients when conducting a commodity-based Murabaha transaction to include government-based Sukuk (issued by the Central Bank of Bahrain).
This service aims to provide significant reductions in processing time for the bank, and is playing a growing role in the expansion and position of the Kingdom of Bahrain as a hub for shariah-complaint financing.
On this occasion, Mr. Tariq Kazim, General Manager – Business Group at Al Baraka Islamic Bank - Bahrain expressed his great pleasure in signing the cooperation agreement with the Bahrain Bourse. This agreement aims at enhancing the Bank’s role in investing in government leasing sukuk, which will expand the investor base in these sukuk on the one hand, and diversifies the sources of financing these issues on the other hand. This will enable the Bank also to play a greater role in providing financing to clients who can use the proceeds from the sale of these sukuk to finance their needs. He expressed his thanks and appreciation to Bahrain Bourse, the Central Bank of Bahrain and Bahrain Clear for arranging for this fruitful cooperation.
On his part, Sh. Khalifa Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa – Chief Executive Officer of Bahrain Bourse commented, “We are pleased to welcome Al Baraka Islamic Bank utilize the Murabaha platform, as this will help the bank expand its Sharia’a-compliant solutions and will diversify services provided by Bahrain Bourse. Further, the service aims to offer unique advantages to Al Baraka Islamic Bank and its customers with Sharia’a-compliant solutions and trading opportunities to meet their growing needs and further position the Kingdom of Bahrain as a hub for Sharia-compliant transactions.