Bahrain-based Al Baraka Banking Group is making progress in fulfilling the dream of its chairman and founder, Saleh Kamel.

HSBC Amanah cannot afford to become complacent. Standard Chartered Saadiq is keeping up the pressure and is a worthy rival for the top spot as best international Islamic bank. A good example is Standard Chartered’s launch of the first Islamic dollar nostro account in the US. However, over the past year HSBC has appeared determined not to be eclipsed by Standard Chartered in Islamic finance. As of October 2010, HSBC Amanah’s operating profit was up 20% on 2009.

No other project finance deal over the past 12 months has the same gravitas as the $7.5 billion financing for Ma’aden Aluminium. The deal and a previous Ma’aden venture, Ma’aden Phosphate, are the two largest endeavours in Saudi Arabia’s attempt to diversify from a hydrocarbon-dependent economy. The two projects will provide a third pillar, after oil/gas and petrochemicals, to the Kingdom’s economy.

Standard Chartered launched its Islamic arm, Saadiq, in 2007 and just under two years later it launched Standard Chartered Saadiq Berhad, Saadiq’s Malaysian unit. Since then Standard Chartered has continued to invest in its Islamic franchise in Asia and the results have been especially clear in 2010.

Al Rajhi’s dominance in the Middle East continues; it is the most successful bank in the most important market in the region. To the end of the third quarter of 2010 (the most recently published numbers), Al Rajhi remained the most profitable bank in Saudi Arabia, with profits of SR5.1 billion ($1.4 billion), well ahead of its nearest rivals, NCB (SR3.5 billion), Samba (SR3.5 billion) and HSBC affiliate SABB (SR1.5 billion).

Crédit Agricole’s involvement in one of the biggest-ever Islamic tranches in a project finance deal gave the bank a big boost to its Islamic finance capabilities.

Clifford Chance retains a formidable Islamic finance practice, advising on some of 2010’s biggest deals. Examples include the $7.5 billion Ma’aden Aluminium and Ma’aden Rolling Mill project financings in Saudi Arabia, and the $1.25 billion sukuk from the Government of Malaysia.

If the best sukuk house award was purely a matter of which bank has the most business there would be no competition: CIMB Islamic would easily win. But biggest does not necessarily mean best and while CIMB Islamic has executed several impressive deals it lacks HSBC Amanah’s breadth of business. CIMB Islamic is a Malaysian sukuk house; HSBC Amanah is global. That doesn’t mean HSBC wins the award purely for its range of business: if that were the case, it would win every year. The deals themselves have to stack up. This year they do.

KPMG stands out for the way it is helping to grow Islamic finance globally. From training a leading UK bank in the processes, risks and controls involved in Islamic banking to helping India and Sri Lanka examine the potential of an Islamic finance industry, KPMG stands above its rivals to win the best advisory firm award.

The fund management business of Saudi Arabia’s biggest investment bank – NCB Capital – grew assets under management by 23.5% last year, adding SR6.8 billion ($1.8 billion) – 95% of the total market growth last year. NCB Capital has a 37% share of Saudi mutual funds.

Only a handful of firms stand out in the takaful industry: SAAB Takaful, Takaful Ikhlas and the winner of this year’s award, FWU.

Although Islamic finance has performed better in Asia than in the Middle East, the sector faced one of its tougher years in 2010. The industry’s future is not secured yet, and the boasts of the boom years have been replaced by introspection and a focus on sustainability. Dominic O’Neill reports.

In 2001 Afaq Khan made a decision that changed his life. He had been at Citibank since 1988 working first in Pakistan, then in Bahrain as a relationship manager for the region’s Islamic banks.

Despite the troubles surrounding sovereign credit elsewhere Malaysia proved that both it and the sukuk asset class remain highly attractive investments when it successfully priced a $1.25 billion, five-year bond in May. It was the biggest ever dollar-denominated sovereign sukuk and Malaysia’s first in eight years.

Euromoney subscribers can compare wealth management advisors and wealth management services globally, by firm, by region and by country.

Five reasons for: 1. A Fragile Coalition: Unusually for Central Asia, the election in October of an interim government led by President Roza Otunbayeva was judged by international investors to have been a fair contest. However, it remains to be seen whether the new parliamentary system adopted since the deposing of Kurmanbek Bakiyev last summer can be made to work as a system of government. The coalition between the SDPK, Ata-Meken and Respublika parties has already fallen apart once in December after the Ata-Meken party leader, Omurbek Tekebayev, failed to win election as parliamentary speaker. The dispute was eventually resolved, but tensions remain over which parties will control key government posts. The number of parties in the already stretched coalition may soon increase to four if, as many observers predict, the nationalist Ata-Jurt party are invited to join. The party has close links to former President Bakiyev, but its strong electoral base in the south may help remove the perception that the government is northern-dominated.

North Korea. Zimbabwe. Tunisia. Algeria. Iraq. Pakistan. Egypt. It’s a list of the world’s flashpoints. And they’re all part of Egyptian entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris’s unique telecoms empire. So when his Orascom group needed financing, and then sought a buyer, it presented Sawiris’s advisers with a unique set of challenges. Eric Ellis tells the fascinating story of corporate finance in the new world order.

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Inter-emerging markets deals are on the increase. Some global investment banks will be hard pressed to get a look-in.

Restricts options for other distressed investment firms; Creditors approve Aref and Ayaan restructurings

Bond resurgence eschews riskier banks; Project bonds might seal demise of loan dominance in Gulf

In the battle to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan, Kabulbank inserted itself as a key player, building the country’s largest deposit base and becoming the payment agent for many government enterprises. But a run on the bank in August led to the ousting of colourful poker-playing bank owner Sherkhan Farnood. What does this mean for the country’s banking sector? Eric Ellis reports.

Not that I know anything about Shariah law, but I would have thought a Shariah-compliant FX trading platform would be a long way off. But no, Bank of London and The Middle East (BLME) has announced “the launch of BLMEFX, one of the world’s first Shariah-compliant web-based FX trading platforms to provide clients with direct access to multiple currencies in order to undertake overseas transactions.” Note the words: “one of the first” – it’s obviously been done before; shamefully, your correspondent doesn’t know any more than that.

"History tells you that the dollars you put to work at this stage in the cycle are very attractive. Buying larger equity stakes does not mean that you are oversizing – it just means that you are buying at a different point in the cycle"

Deals with creditors for the high-profile corporate collapses in the Middle East have a distinctly local flavour. They will set the standard for the future, and if the case of Dubai World is anything to go by, generate renewed interest and activity in the region. Nick Lord reports.

Given the different macroeconomic and political backdrops, the region’s banking sectors are characterized by sharply differing business fundamentals and prospects. Guy Norton looks at some winners and losers.