GF
UK doesn’t want Gulf’s Islamic talent
18 September 2008
If you’re an Islamic finance professional based in the Middle East and are hoping to penetrate the UK market, the message is clear - don’t bother. The Middle East might be a more mature market in this space currently, but London is intent on developing its own talent.
Gatehouse Bank, a recently-established UK-based Islamic finance house, predicts that the number of players in the London market will double over the next five years.
Nader Kamel, a senior manager with HSBC Amanah, says: “The UK government is really committed to making this market flourish in order to make London the hub for Sharia banking in Europe.”
With a well-documented skills-shortage in this space, you would have thought the UK would welcome professionals from the Middle East, but this is not the case.
Mohammed Amin, head of the UK Islamic finance practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says: “The skills-shortage is an exaggeration. We have a very large number of Islamic finance professionals in the UK and this is growing rapidly. If anything there is a flow of people moving from the UK to the Middle East.”
This sentiment is echoed by Mohammed Shafique of the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance in London: “The momentum of training and education within the UK Islamic finance space is very good, and to a large extent will cover the requirements of the industry. Banks may take on senior people from the Middle East who have knowledge of clients and structuring the products.”
Indeed, Gatehouse Bank seems to have tapped the Middle Eastern market for some of its senior hires. Michael Clarke was recently appointed as director of capital markets from Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and Mourad Mekhail joined as managing director for institutional wealth management from Merrill Lynch Bank Suisse.
A number of new courses have popped up in the UK to ensure a healthy pipeline of entry level candidates.
Bangor University is set to offer an Islamic banking Masters this year, Durham University has a post-graduate diploma in Islamic finance, CIMA unveiled an Islamic qualification in late 2007 and the Securities and Investment Institute has rolled out an Islamic course.
Utter rubbish. One new bank opens up in the UK and you think the balance of power has shifted? Who are these "very large numbers of Islamic finance professionals in the UK"? I am rarely compelled to respond to articles, but the essential point which has been missed is that there is very little Islamic finance talent anywhere, but especially in the UK. Academic qualifications are meaningless in this field as is plain vanilla experience in murabaha and even sukuk, which is what London bankers have. The press seems to think Islamic finance means sukuk. To teams that make money, it means Shari'a compliant PE funds, structured products and acquisition finance - all of which are still healthy and active in MENA. The vast majority of UK-based Islamic finance professionals are living on borrowed time, before they get found out as lacking depth and breadth. Our Islamic structuring team exists in the Gulf because it's closer to the big clients, the scholars and the distribution channels. We hand off sukuk to our conventional colleagues on the DCM desk in London as it's now largely process driven, ie where a deep skills base is not required.
Structurer, IB 22 Sep 2008
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