First of its kind Social Responsibility Report on Islamic Financial Instutitions released
Maqasid Al-Shari’a Awards Recognize Leaders

(United States, Marlboro, NJ, January 31, 2010)– Two leading Islamic Finance Industry service providers, DinarStandard and Dar Al Istithmar, today announced the release of a first-of-its-kind report on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Islamic Finance Institutions as well as recognizing social responsibility leaders from within the respondents with the Maqasid Al-Shari’a Awards. The Social Responsibility Trends at Islamic Financial Institutions Report presents the aggregate results of an extensive survey on Social Responsibility at Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) carried out during summer and fall of 2009. Some key findings of the survey were:

• Charity: 76% indicated that they had polices for charitable activities whilst 17% had none. Charitable activities remains a strong priority for IFIs, but most do not consider utilising their fund mobilizing capabilities to raise funds for charities or emergency causes (only 34% said they do.)
• Responsible Investments: 55% responded yes to having some policy in investment quotas on social, developmental and environment orientated investments, whilst 38% did not have such policy. However, amongst the three types, environmental related investment quotas had the least focus (38%).
• Clients: 100% of respondents answered yes to having a policy to screen prospective clients which is actively implemented. Similarly 97% have an organizational policy that deals with client responsibly.
• Employees: 83% of respondents’ state having policies that provide equal opportunity to all their employees, 93% have policies that ensures merit-based salary and promotion, and 86% having policies that specifically prohibits any kind of discrimination. However, when it comes to having policy to monitor employees from different backgrounds and gender, the response was mix with only 52% admitting to having such a monitoring policy and 48% not having any such policy.

Leaders from amongst the survey respondents are also being announced through the introduction of Maqasid Al-Shari’a CSR Awards within the following categories:

• Best Islamic Bank: Jordan Islamic Bank for Finance & Investment, Jordan
• Best Islamic Window: HSBC Amanah, UAE
• Best Islamic Insurance: T’azur Company, Bahrain
• Best Employee Policies: Al Baraka Bank, South Africa
• Best Investment Policies: Jordan Islamic Bank for Finance & Investment, Jordan
• Best Charitable Activities: Affin Islamic Bank, Malaysia

“This report demonstrates, within its limited sample, that Islamic Finance is a truly ethical solution to the socio-economic issues facing mankind and tools such as ours will provide the industry with a voice to demonstrate the benefits of this ethical financial system,” said Sayd Farook, Senior Consultant at Dar Al-Istithmar.

“We hope this Report will contribute to support the CSR efforts of IF institutions and further facilitate the Industry’s relevance and global leadership opportunity in a time of global socio-economic crisis,” says Rafi-uddin Shikoh, Managing Director of Dinar Standard™.

The survey was sent to executives of 160 of the largest full and widow Islamic financial institutions and was open to other IFIs as well. The survey benchmarked IFIs with the recently released CSR standards by the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institution (AAOIFI) that cover 13 aspects of social responsibility such as client engagement, employee welfare, charity, environment, investment quotas and others. AAOIFI is also an Official Supporter of the Survey.

The aggregate Trends Report with results analysis, select commendable programs and author recommendations can be accessed free online at: http://www.dinarstandard.com/maqasid/

ABOUT DinarStandard™:

DinarStandard™ (DinarStandard.com) is a growth strategy and market intelligence consultancy focused on OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) markets. It uniquely enables clients to expand into new markets, identify new investment opportunities, and develop high impact marketing strategies. It’s OIC focussed insights are regularly covered by media such as The Economist, Forbes, Zaman (Turkey,) Star (Malaysia), Arab News (Saudi Arabia) and many others.

• "Social Responsibility Trends at Islamic Financial Institutions" (PDF)