Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) standards will be made available online through Thomson Reuters' range of digital information platforms, including Zawya Islamic, it was announced.

AAOIFI Sharia standards are approved and developed under the guidance of its Sharia Board, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

The standards represent the broadest consensus of rules that govern the Islamic finance industry and cover Sharia, accounting, auditing, governance and ethics.

AAOIFI secretary-general Dr Hamed Hassan Merah said the intricacies and uniqueness of Islamic finance practices are an important reason for the industry's own standards.

"There also exists the need for unifying international standards, to bring about homogeneity in the Islamic finance practices across the markets.

"By making the standards available online, accessibility to the standards will be greatly improved.

"AAOIFI firmly believes that this will in turn promote wider adoption of the standards by the international Islamic finance industry," he added.

Thomson Reuters Islamic Capital Markets head Dr Sayd Farook said this represented a continuation of the revolution in the Islamic finance knowledge space. - TradeArabia News Service