Standards on Islamic finance discussed at the bankers conference in Ufa, Bashkortostan

On 12 March Roustam Vakhitov, member of the coordination council of the Russian Association of Experts in Islamic Financing, senior manager of Pepeliaev Group delivered presentation on Islamic banking standards at the conference "Banks. Processes. Standards. Quality" organized by Association of Russian Banks and Association of Banking Organizations of Bashkortostan at Natinal Bank of Bashkortostan of Central Bank of Russia in Ufa, Bashkortostan.

In his presentation he covered history of development of Islamic banking, standards of Islamic finance prepared by AAOIFI (Bahrain) and IFSB (Malaysia) and sociological research conducted by the Russia Mufties council, according to which up to 75% of respondents roughly would be prepared to buy Islamic finance products. Roustam Vakhitov concluded that there are no tax and legal issues which could not be resolved for the purposes of implemntation of Islamic Finance products at the Russian market since demand is there.

The presentation triggered a brief polemics with Andrey Zhuravlev of Bank of Moscow who suggested that the results of the research might be not representative and at present he was rather sceptical about the future of Islamic Finance in Russia.

The presentation was received with interest and Roustam Vakhitov was invited to participate in the work of the Association of Russian Banks on relevant standards.

14.03.2010