Islamic banking assets with commercial banks globally, will reach $1.1 trillion this year and continue growing at a rate of 15 to 20 per cent per year, said an expert.

"The Mena Islamic banking industry is expected to more than double to $990 billion by 2015 from $416 billion in 2010," said MTI Consulting chief executive Hilmy Cader on the sidelines of the pre-conference workshops of the World Islamic Banking Conference at the Gulf Hotel yesterday, according to a report in our sister publication the Gulf Daily News.

"Despite the growing asset market share in the Mena banking market, the average asset base, $13 billion for leading Islamic banks is a third of conventional banks.

"There has been a steep decline in return on equity, now stabilised around 10pc in contrast to 2006 figure of 23 per cent in spite of better financing margins, higher deposit growth and higher proportion of free deposits,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service