[...]... to increase from the Islamic banking and finance industry bearing in mind the ethics and moral fibre of the culture that these institutions refer to as the raison d’être of their existence NOTES 1 This includes fully-fledged Islamic financial institutions as well as the conventional banks and institutions operating Islamic windows or conducting Islamic financial transactions Source: Institute of Islamic. .. includes the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements To help the regulators and supervising bodies in providing a level playing field to Islamic banks without compromising on the efficiency and ethical standards already in vogue in the national and global financial markets, the IFSB is rigorously reviewing international standards and developing standards for Islamic banks in the following... following areas: ● ● ● ● Capital adequacy Risk management Corporate governance Transparency and market discipline 6 Islamic banking and finance in the European Union The Board is also in the process of developing prudential and supervising standards in these areas for the purpose of promoting best practice for the industry at the national as well as global level These standards are meant to complement the. .. presence of Islamic banking and finance, aim at providing credibility and support to the Islamic banking and finance industry at the global level The most important of these developments, perhaps, is the establishment of a body known as the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) which is governed by the Central Bank Governors of countries where Islamic banking exists The membership of the Board also includes... development of the International Islamic Financial Market in Bahrain which will provide a secondary market with Islamic instruments will provide a good opportunity to Islamic banks for liquidity management The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), based in Bahrain, plays an important role in integrating and harmonizing the accounting and auditing practices The Islamic. .. The emergence of these institutions is helping to bring out funds into the banking channels which were previously avoided on the grounds of the religious injunctions against interest-based banking It is this phenomenon of capturing the money which has previously bypassed the formal financial channels that is causing the Islamic banking and finance industry to show unprecedented growth The historical... unprecedented 1 2 Islamic banking and finance in the European Union growth over the global scene Now the institutions dealing with Islamic finance exist in more than 50 countries The total number of such institutions is more than 275 of which 54 are reported in Europe.1 These institutions are estimated to be handling funds somewhere around $500 billion growing at a rate of more than 15 percent per annum The emergence... Source: Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance, London Website: http://www islamic- banking. com/ibanking/ifi_list.php 2 It is known that there is an interesting economic, management and legal literature in the field (Porzio, 2009), but there are very few specialized studies about the issues of Islamic banking in the European legal framework 3 At the time of writing, only the Financial Services Authority...Acknowledgements The editors wish to thank the Department of Diritto comune patrimoniale at the Law School of University of Naples ‘Federico II’ for its kind cooperation since the workshop on Islamic banking and the European banking law’ held in 2005 and the Editrice Giuffrè (Milano), which published the proceedings in 2006 A special mention must be made of the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI),... Islamic Rating Agency (IRA) is another infrastructural institution which gives credibility to Islamic financial institutions A FINAL REMARK There is no doubt as to the positive effects of the increasing business and number of Islamic banks in the European Community on the global economic integration and on the growth of financial services on offer to Muslim people in Europe However, we want to underline, . Islamic Banking and Finance in the European Union STUDIES IN ISLAMIC FINANCE, ACCOUNTING AND GOVERNANCE Series Editor: Mervyn K. Lewis, Professor of Banking. ● Transparency and market discipline. ● 6 Islamic banking and  nance in the European Union The Board is also in the process of developing prudential and supervis- ing