Clients for Deutsche Bank’s structured products transcend geographic and sectoral boundaries in the global Islamic finance industry.

In the past few years, HSBC Amanah has demonstrated its ability to innovate through a series of fund products. Its Global Properties Income Fund is, at $1.7 billion, the biggest Islamic real estate fund.

In the past 12 months, KPMG has provided more than 50 Islamic financial institutions with assurance and advisory services. It is the geographical spread of this business that gives KPMG this award.

While some of the biggest names in international banking are struggling to keep their heads above water, Qatar Islamic Bank goes from strength to strength.

Clifford Chance

Wafra Investment Advisory

Islamic finance has grown dramatically in recent years as more countries, banks and investors see its potential. But the growth of the asset class will remain limited until industry standardization on Shariah compliance is reached. When is this likely to happen?

HSBC Amanah

The tide is changing in the global takaful market. In 2007 the UK-based world leader in insurance, Prudential, took a definitive step into the GCC takaful market with Bank Aljazira, one of Saudi Arabia’s smallest banks.

The Islamic finance industry is expanding so rapidly and in such a fragmented manner that barely a month goes by when some financial institution does not claim to have launched a new shariah-compliant asset class.

For yet another year, the joint venture between Dawney, Day and Icap has been well ahead of the competition in Islamic commodities trading.

As the Saudi Arabian project finance pipeline grows to almost $500 billion, there is new momentum behind the Shariah-compliant project finance world.

CIMB Islamic

Qatar Islamic Bank

Standard Chartered

The growth in size, expertise and therefore competition in the Shariah-compliant market in 2008 made Euromoney’s choices for our Islamic finance awards the hardest to date. The best firms not only got bigger, they brought new levels of innovation to bear in a series of landmark deals.

With traditional debt markets still in disarray, it’s theoretically a good time for sukuks to foster issuance outside the Middle East and Asia.

"Sudan is probably the richest country in the region. It has the best commodity in the world: water. It also has oil, minerals, cattle, fertile land and human resources. If it can resolve its problems, Sudan has the potential to be a perfect economy." Such is the view of Ahmed Abbas, CEO of Liquidity Management Centre, a Bahraini Islamic investment firm. And if the capital markets are anything to go by, says Abbas, the biggest country in Africa might already have begun its recovery.

Euromoney has been informed by a source claiming to have been close to an eight-figure deal that cash-rich Saudi Islamic bank Al Rajhi entered into with troubled US bank Bear Stearns just before Christmas.

Al Rajhi Bank

An RMBS clinching the best deal category for the year of the sub-prime crisis might appear at first to be a little ironic.

CIMB Islamic

Structured finance departments have taken a bit of a battering in the past few months but in southern Africa there is still belief in and appetite for the business. The domestic market in South Africa is growing rapidly, partly to meet political pressure to transfer assets to people with little money and no equity. Electricity shortages might well also be a key driver of new deal flows.

2007 was a year of achievement for Islamic finance, with growth on all fronts. Yet the sector still faces great challenges, not least in finding and training enough Islamic bankers.

Demand is high, but the volume and diversity of instruments is limited.

The annual Private banking awards provide a qualitative and quantitative review of the best services in private banking, by region and by areas of service. It is an informative guide for high net-worth individuals on the range of service providers that are available.

The world’s most profitable chemicals company, and possibly soon to be its biggest, has ploughed ahead with big expansion plans despite the credit crisis, making more use of Islamic and local capital markets. Dominic O’Neill talks to Sabic’s CFO, Mutlaq Al Morished.

One of Latin America’s biggest challenges is financing its massive infrastructure needs, and nowhere is this more pressing than in Mexico, especially in toll road development.

Submissions now being accepted.

Credit Suisse has appointed Michael Fouad Chahine as global head of Islamic banking distribution. The bank is expanding its platform to distribute Shariah-compliant products. Chahine, who will be based in Dubai, will coordinate the existing Islamic banking businesses across Credit Suisse’s investment banking, private banking and asset management divisions to build a distribution centre in Dubai. Chahine has been with Credit Suisse since 2000. Most recently he was head of strategic initiatives in Dubai.