Dear Members & Friends,
Upon its establishment in 2006, The Arab Chamber of Commerce & Industry drafted a 5-year strategic plan in which it called for the formation of a Hong Kong based financial institution guided by Islamic principles by 2009. The raison d’être of such a financial institution was the provision of financial services to members who conduct their lives and businesses in accordance with the tenets of Shariah as well as those people who are not bankable in the traditional sense of the word.
Such a financial institution would identify and implement creative ways for Muslims to adhere to religious restrictions that, among other things, prevent them from collecting interest on savings or paying interest on loans.
What was a vision and a strategic objective in late 2006 has become reality! On the 27th of May 2009, government regulators approved Hong Kong’s first cooperative Shariah compliant financial institution...