Survey: UAE Banks Extend Good Performance

UAE banks will surely make it better in 2008 as they were being praised for a good performance last year, survey said.

Fitch said it expects banks to perform strongly in 2008, given that performances rely heavily on core banking activities, and also in the light of continuous strong demand for credit.

Despite sector loan growth of 40 percent in 2007 and strong growth in prior years, asset quality remained sound in 2007, Fitch noted.

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No Subprime Crisis If Islamic Principles Were Applied

If only the Islamic Principles were applied, Islamic Finance could have prevented the Subprime Crisis being sparked by the US Subprime mortgage, according to an Islamic scholar. but another scholar said that the US mortgage crisis is unthinkable under Islamic principles. Find out why...


“A crisis such as the mortgage one would technically be unthinkable in the Islamic capital
markets sector because it would be against Sharia principles to sell a debt against a debt.”

The subprime mortgage crisis had seen trillions of dollars traded without the backing of assets, he said.

“If such transactions followed the Islamic finance model it would have easily prevented the current economic crisis.”

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Meet the Arab World’s Most Powerful Woman

Forbes.com has named the world's most powerful women. One of this powerful women hails from Arabian Country. She Tops the 2008 Forbes Arabia list of the 50 most powerful Arab businesswomen. she is Salma Hareb....
list of top 10 most powerful women for 2008....

The Forbes Arabia list, which appears in the magazine’s May edition, is dominated by executives who run but do not own businesses, with six of the top 10 working in the banking and investment sectors.

Hareb is followed by Kuwait’s Maha Al Ghunaim, who chairs Global Investment House, and Saudi Arabia’s Lubna Olayan, CEO and General Manager of Olayan Financing Company, who topped the 2006 list.

At number four is Saudi Arabia’s Nahed Taher, founder and CEO of Gulf One Investment Bank, and at number five is Kuwait’s Sheikha Khaled Al Bahar, Vice-CEO of the National Bank of Kuwait. At number six is Egypt’s Sahar el Sallab, Vice-Chair of Commercial International Bank.

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