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The Canadian Muslim community has realized the success of UM Financial in leading Islamic Finance in Canada.
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UM Financial is a premier Canadian Islamic finance corporation that is a trend setter and a benchmark in the industry. The company manages a Musharakah (Partnership) real estate portfolio of nearly $200 million. UM has exponentially expanded its operations over the course of two years and is poised for more. The company secured a $150 million Mudarabah (Management) facility from the Credit Union Central of Ontario, which is used to finance Shariah compliant real estate residential properties in Canada and a $12 Million facility was secured from a Gulf based bank to structure commercial property financing in Canada. Community investment is brought together in UM Real Estate Investment Inc. to facilitate further residential and commercial financing. Working with major institutions it has plans to launch shortly takaful insurance, banking/deposit products, credit cards, property development/management, micro-finance and venture captial projects. Today, UM Financial has eight regional offices and a staff of close to twenty who are ready to welcome Canada's close to 1 million Muslims with a range of products and services that fulfill their ethical needs. Visit www.umfinancial.com for more information.
Recent articles:
Islamic finance growing in Canada
http://www.lawtimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2078&Itemid=82
Banks give sharia a second look http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070525.RSHARIA25/TPStory/Business
Canada woos Islamic finance http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=fb6699bc-72ea-46c5-ba60-03d2b63dbf35&k=86595
Faith-based mortgages court Muslims http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=01ff2407-f4fe-4c16-80ad-1172d0d25763&k=5052
Sharia'h-Compliant Finance - Dawn of Ethical Financing in North America http://www.prleap.com/pr/78689/
Banking Act Prevents Islamic Financing from Taking Off http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/may/23/bankingact/
Islamic Banking offers choice to Muslims in Canada http://www.omnitv.ca/ontario/news/islamicbanking/
Putting faith in Islamic mortgages http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/175805
Muslim law dictates new investment practices http://www.thestar.com/article/204759
Partnership allow UM Financial's Omar Kalair to fulfill his dream of providing Shariah-compliant mortgages to Muslims http://www.thestar.com/article/200871
Innovations of Islam http://www.thestar.com/article/200874
Koran-friendly mortgages now in Hamilton http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=1014656316146&c=Article&cid=1173760160429
Globe and Mail Business 25/05/07
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Banks give sharia a second look
TAVIA GRANT
May 25, 2007
TORONTO -- Bank of Nova Scotia and Toronto-Dominion Bank are quietly considering whether to start offering sharia-compliant products, as part of the big banks' strategy to reach out to a growing immigrant population.
Representatives at Canada's second- and third-largest banks by market capitalization were among the 200 delegates at the Islamic Finance World conference in Toronto this week.
"I can confirm it's something we're tentatively looking at," said Frank Switzer, Scotiabank's spokesman, without providing further detail. TD spokeswoman Kelly Hechler said "it's something we're looking at and we're interested in."
That interest comes as Islamic financial services are growing in Canada and abroad. KPMG has estimated worldwide assets at more than $300-billion (U.S.), with global Islamic institutions growing at 15 per cent a year.
What was considered fringe three decades ago has now become mainstream. Global banks, from HSBC to Deutsche Bank, are offering sharia-compliant financial services as petrodollars fuel demand from the Middle East. The Gulf region alone has as much as $2-trillion (U.S.) in investments, much of which is flowing abroad.
"Every day we are told about the start of a new Islamic bank," Sheik Nizam Yaquby of Bahrain told the Toronto conference. Sharia-compliant products vary and there's little standardization in the sector, which is thought to be the fastest growing in financial services today. Generally, products can't have any explicit interest; transactions can't be in such areas such as gambling, alcohol, pork or pornography; and they can't be deemed as too high risk.
Practitioners liken it to any other form of socially responsible investing and stress that it's open to all religions.
Canada's been a bit late to the game, but momentum's building. Yesterday, iTrust Partners Inc. launched a $400-million (Canadian) sharia-compliant income fund for Middle Eastern and European investors that are interested in Canadian assets. BMO is the prime brokerage and CIBC is providing administrative services.
Retail demand in Canada is still unclear and that may be why the Big Five banks are slow to jump on board. At present, though, services such as mortgages are more expensive. UM Financial Inc. has provided sharia-compliant mortgages to almost 500 homeowners in Ontario - even though it charges a deposit and costs about 0.60 percentage points more than a regular mortgage. Its homeowner mortgages tend to be structured like a rent-to-own system to avoid interest.
Demand has been so great that UM Financial has stopped all marketing and has a 5,000-person waiting list of people who want to switch over from conventional mortgages to ones that are sharia-compliant, said Omar Kalair, the chief executive officer of UM Financial.
UM wants to offer its mortgages at prices similar to what the banks offer - and to do so it says it's talking with one of the Big Five banks about financial backing. He estimates there are about 200,000 Muslim households in Canada and wants to capture 2.5 per cent of that market within a year or two.
In Canada, lawyers from many of the big law firms were in attendance at this week's conference, scrambling to learn about the new, and potentially lucrative, field.
"Every indicator we've seen, both statistical and anecdotal, has made it clear that the retail market in Canada is a multibillion-dollar market," said Walied Soliman, a lawyer at Ogilvy Renault LLP.
The sector still faces multiple hurdles. Chief among them are a lack of regulation and transparency among many of the fledgling companies offering products.
Standardization is another issue, with plenty of debate over what's allowed among the few sharia scholars qualified to approve new investment products.
A global dearth of scholars also means long wait times in getting new products approved
74.104.114.124 20:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Declined your proposed content is not in a neutral tone and reads like an advertisement. Computerjoe's talk 21:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)