Standard Chartered has signed renminbi (RMB) cross-border trade settlement account agreements with five MENA -based banks. This will allow them to open RMB accounts in China to facilitate trade activities. The five banks are: Alinma Bank Saudi Arabia, Bank Al Falah Pakistan, BankMed Lebanon, Habib Metropolitan Bank Pakistan and Union Bank Jordan. The agreements were signed recently at the Annual …

Standard Chartered Bank has launched the first Islamic US dollar nostro account in the United States. Islamic banks across the world will now be able to earn Shariah-compliant profits on their account balances at Standard Chartered Bank New York by using this facility, which will operate on the Islamic finance principle of Commodity Murabaha. Profits will be paid on a …

Moody’s Investors Service has announced that its Dubai-based regional office, Moody’s Middle East Limited, has moved to permanent and larger premises within the Gate District of the Dubai International Financial Centre. “The move reflects Moody’s continued commitment to its customers in the Middle East,” said Jehad El-Nakla, general manager of Moody’s Middle East Ltd. “As the global economy gradually emerges …

Qatar National Bank has announced the launch of “eazypay”, an innovation that allows retail customers to transfer funds to friends and family using their mobile phones. The funds are transferred almost instantly, and confirmation SMS text messages are sent to both the sender and receiver. The platform used by eazypay is said to be one of the most secure and …

Foreign banks reduced their deposits in the UAE by nearly Dh40bn in the first half of 2010 to push them to their lowest level in nearly four years and reverse a massive inflow of speculative money, according to recent official data. From around Dh93bn at the end of 2009, their deposits with the UAE ’s 51 banks dropped to nearly …

Saudi banks appear to be performing better in the second half of this year as they resume lending to the government and their credit to the private sector edges up, a local investment firm said recently. The combined net profits of the 12 commercial banks in the world’s oil superpower stood at around SR 3.1bn in July, their highest monthly …

The Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP), a multilateral bank owned by the 10 member states of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, in August reported an above-budget net income of $47m for the first six months of 2010, a 95 per cent rise over the same period the previous year. Assets at the end of June had climbed to …

The UAE and Saudi Arabia received 80 per cent of the total $278bn worth of foreign direct investments (FDI) that flowed into the GCC over the past two decades, according to the latest report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD ). The UAE was the second largest recipient with $73.4bn, or 26 per cent of the …

Standard Chartered Bank has launched a new cash management service for corporate and institutional clients in the UAE . Client Account Services (CAS ) is an innovative, web-based solution designed for organisations to manage customer funds. This is a first-of-its-kind solution, says Standard Chartered Bank, and it enables clients to open downstream customer bank accounts online. CAS can be used …

The Abu Dhabi financial services firm Invest AD and Japan’s SBI Holdings Inc (SBI) are establishing a new fund management company to invest in Africa, starting with capital of up to $100m. The new fund will focus on Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. It will invest in several sectors, including banking, mining, consumer products and manufacturing, through listed …

EzRemit (EzR), a leading provider of money transfer services using state-of-theart, web-based technology, has signed a strategic partnership with United Bank of Egypt (UBE). EzRemit is part of BFC Group Holdings, which also owns Bahrain Financing Company (BFC), the Kingdom of Bahrain’s oldest leading money transfer and foreign exchange group. Launched in 2003, with a mission to provide fast, affordable …

English is on the agenda in Bahrain. The Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) is the first institute in the region to adopt the Cambridge Financial English (CFE) blended learning course to help develop language skills in the finance sector. The move is part of a growing trend in which command of English is seen as an essential skill. …

Things are looking up for the UAE , according to its economy minister Sultan Mansouri, who is reported as saying that he expects “clear skies ahead compared with the overcast conditions of last year”. The forecast is for positive growth of three per cent this year despite uncertainties and risks such as weak credit growth, reports the Standard Chartered Global …

Dear Reader, Trade finance is making a comeback. It is not only refocusing on its capabilities in risk mitigation, but also regaining its place as a competitive advantage. This is occurring in many markets, from developing and emerging economies, to those that are developed, and in a wide variety of industry sectors. Alexander Malaket, who has contributed an article in …

MUSHTAK PARKER looks at some of the constraints on the sector Considering that intra-Islamic trade between the 57 member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) states totalled a staggering $556.328bn in 2008, albeit 16.55 per cent of their total trade, one would have assumed that the uptake of Islamic trade and commodity finance would be equally robust. This …

In an exclusive interview, SAMIR SAHU, head of transaction banking services at Emirates NBD, talks to Cash & Trade What are the bank’s transaction strategy and its market? The bank’s transaction strategy has been to service, at an attractive price point, corporate and SME businesses through technology solutions that facilitate clients who give us their whole turnovers. This business was …