Global banking leaders will have the opportunity to evaluate Islamic banking options at a conference to be held in Dubai in November.

The fifth Islamic Retail Banking Conference will take place at the Shangri-La Hotel on November 26 and 27.

As the future promises great opportunity for the Islamic banking sector, competition from conventional banks, reaching out to a predominantly captured market, creating awareness and educating them about a whole different banking concept creates excessive limitations in its growth cycle, said a statement.

Apart from these external challenges that Islamic banking is continuously coping, while there are internal challenges that need to be addressed in order to grasp the concept and proceedings of the banking structure, it said.

The pivotal internal challenge that Islamic banking is suffering is related to the complications of documentation and formalities involved in Islamic banking due to its nature of business dealing, it added.

“We believe that the future of Islamic retail banking is encouraging. This is apparently shown in the continual growth of this finance volume and its increasing growth rates which surpass their counterparts in conventional banking. This would create a challenge of the ability to develop the products of this sector to meet the increasing and renewed needs of this sector’s clients,” said Musa A Shihadeh, vice chairman and CEO of Jordan Islamic Bank.

Issues to be addressed include implementing new and different strategies to reap profits and how to achieve total organisational alignment.

The conference will bring global C level Islamic retail banker together, presenting a networking opportunity for conventional bankers, Islamic retail bankers, takaful companies, leading law firms and Shariah experts to ensure that the strengths and weaknesses of the Islamic retail banking are probed every year and best practices shared to boost the asset growth. - TradeArabia News Service