Financiers indicate obstacles for Islamic banking in Russia

Prospects for the development of Islamic banking in Russia were the main discussion at the Islamic Economic Forum "Russia – Partnership Guarantor", held at the "Sberbank" Corporate University in Moscow on February 27.

According to forum participants, the "ethical banking" is a common practice widespread in the world, not only in Muslim countries; thus, in Britain, its principles have been fixed in the legislation since early 2000s; and financial structures based thereon are popular.

However, in Russia, the law does not allow the implementation of the forms of Islamic financing.

Within the framework of the current legislation, this can be done only at the level of the experiment, on separate platforms (the so-called "sandboxes") in the regions with predominantly Muslim population, said Bekhnam Gurban-Zade, an economist.

Alexei Simanovsky, the head of the Bank of Russia's working group on partner financing, drew attention to the fact that the creation of "sandboxes" is also complicated, and will require special legislative measures.

"A special legal framework for these 'sandboxes' is needed, and there is a strong feeling that the only intention of market players is not enough for that; we need certain legislative changes," he said addressing the forum.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.