The IFSB Database Completes Five Years Data for Islamic Banking Systems in 21 Countries, including the United Kingdom for the First Time

(MENAFNEditorial) The Islamic financial Services Board (IFSB) is pleased to announce the dissemination of country-level data on financial soundness and growth of the Islamic banking systems for Q1 of 2018 from 21 IFSB member jurisdictions. This tenth dissemination includes the data from four newly joined countries, namely: Qatar, Palestine, Lebanon, and the first time for the United Kingdom. This dissemination completes the availability of quarterly data from Q4 of 2013 to Q1 of 2018. The countries currently participating in the IFSB’s Prudential and Structural Islamic Financial Indicators (PSIFIs) database project include: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

The Secretary-General of the IFSB, Dr. Bello Lawal Danbatta stated, “With the dissemination of Islamic banking data of the United Kingdom for the first time, the PSIFIs database have achieved an important step in extending its outreach to another important Islamic finance market.” He further stated, “Under Phase IV of this project, current template for data collection for the Islamic banking sector is being extended to the template of detailed sector-level financial statements (DFS) for more granular data on income statements as well as financial positions, which provides more in-depth understanding to the data users on the trends and stability of Islamic banking activities in participating jurisdictions and at global level.” “The IFSB has also undertaken several efforts to expand the database coverage to Islamic insurance (takaful) and Islamic capital market sectors (ICM), including conducting an industry wide survey, finalisation of the list of indicators and compilation methodologies”, said Dr. Bello.

With the inclusion of new countries’ data, the total assets of the Islamic banking industry grew by 8.0% from USD 1,573 billion in 2017Q1 to USD 1,699 billion in 2018Q1 (calculated from country-wise aggregated data converted into USD terms using end-period exchange rates). Financing by Islamic banks from the jurisdictions participating in the PSIFIs project which grew by 6.7% reached USD 1,033 billion in 2018Q1 from USD 968 billion in 2017Q1.

The number of full-fledged Islamic banks and Islamic windows of conventional banks in 21 IFSB member participating countries stood at 188 and 85 in 2018Q1 as compared to 184 and 84 in 2017Q1 respectively.

Since the Islamic banking database is already covering over 95% of global Islamic banking activity, the IFSB’s next focus is to establish a global database which will provide detailed sector-level financial statements for each participating countries. Similarly, while completing the background work for extension of the project to ICM and takaful sectors, the IFSB Secretariat will invite selected ICM and takaful regulatory and supervisory authorities for participation in this project in the fourth quarter of 2018.

The PSIFIs Database (full set of data with metadata) is available on the PSIFIs portal at the IFSB website http://psifi.ifsb.org.

PSIFIs Background
The Task Force of PSIFIs project includes representatives from 21 participating regulatory and supervisory authorities that work as coordinators for regular submission of data from their countries and work with the IFSB during the due processes of data collection, compilation, revision, and approval. Three international organisations-the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-are also members of the Task Force.

Following the successful launch of PSIFIs database on 27 April 2015, the IFSB currently has a platform for periodical dissemination of the PSIFIs data, which is regularly submitted by participating jurisdictions. Moreover, from 2014 until now, the Secretariat has conducted a total of nine capacity building meetings/workshops with the country coordinators, including one in 2018.

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