Fortitude Capital Sdn Bhd, a fund manager, is teaming up with Kuwait's Islamic investment group Al-Aqeelah to set up a Takaful company in Syria.

The two parties signed a memorandum of understanding here yesterday towards forming the joint venture in that country by early next year.

It will be Al-Aqeelah’s first Takaful operations. Al-Aqeelah also announced the appointment of Fortitude Capital chairman and Malaysia-Syria business council chairman as its representative in Asia.

Islamic banking has now become part of the country's mainstream financial system and has the potential to generate the country's economic growth, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

In a written reply to Datuk Abdul Rahim Bakri (BN-Kudat) in the Dewan Rakyat, the prime minister said Islamic banking has cornered 12.2% of the domestic financial market with assets totalling RM133 billion. In the Takaful sector, it has cornered 6.1% of the market with assets worth RM6.9 billion.

Qatar Islamic Bank is planning the first securitisation by a bank in the Middle East.

Qatar’s largest Islamic bank and the Gulf’s fourth largest Islamic lender by market value has hired Kuwait-based Islamic investment bank Rasameel Structured Finance Company and an international investment bank, which it did not name, to advise on the deal.

QIB’s securitisation aims to serve the bank’s overseas expansion plans.

Sakana Holistic Housing Solutions BSC, an Islamic financial institution based in Bahrain has completed implementation of FLEXCUBE for Islamic Banking, for its mortgage financing operations.

Sakana is the fifth financial institution in the Middle East to use the universal IT banking solution for Islamic financing from i-flex Solutions Ltd.