COMCEC Financial Outlook 2018
24
several member countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and UAE, have been giving attention to
green sukuk and the sukuk issuance is expected to increase in the near future significantly.
Islamic Funds
Islamic funds are investment vehicles that take the form of equal participating shares/units,
representing the shareholders’/unitholders’ share of the assets and entitlement to profits or
losses. There are many types of Islamic funds such as Islamic index funds, Islamic hedge funds,
Shariah private equity funds, Sukuk funds, Islamic equity funds, etc.
Despite the significant increase in the number of Islamic funds in 2018 [1,292], assets under
management (AuM) almost kept steady and reached USD 67.4 billion24. The top five
jurisdictions, three of which are non-OIC countries, accounted for %85 [2017: 88%] of the
industry’s AuM as at the end of 2018, i.e. Saudi Arabia 34% [2017: 37.10%], Malaysia 32%
[2017: 31.66%], Ireland 9.0% [2017: 8.62%], the US 5% [5.25%] and Luxembourg 5% [2017:
4.76%]. This indicates that the operations of Islamic funds are still limited as key Islamic finance
jurisdictions have deep-rooted Islamic banking sectors (e.g., the UAE, Pakistan, Indonesia,
Kuwait, and Qatar). The remaining 15% [2017: 12%] of AUM, with a USD 8.4 billion value, is
distributed across 29 other jurisdictions (including offshore domiciles)25.
Figure 17: Assets under Management and Number of Islamic Funds (USD billion)
Source: IFSB 2019
24 Ibid.
25 IFSB, 2019.
75,8
71,3
56,1
66,7 67,4
1.161
1.220
1.167 1.161
1.292
1.050
1.100
1.150
1.200
1.250
1.300
1.350
0,0
10,0
20,0
30,0
40,0
50,0
60,0
70,0
80,0
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Assets Number of Funds (RHS)