issue no. 163 - january–march 2007 / muharram–rabi al awwal 1428
issue no. 163 - january–march 2007 / muharram–rabi al awwal 1428
issue no. 163 - january–march 2007 / muharram–rabi al awwal 1428
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ANALYSIS: SUKUK<br />
NEWHORIZON January–March <strong>2007</strong><br />
The role of the sukuk in<br />
managing liquidity <strong>issue</strong>s<br />
Managing liquidity is essenti<strong>al</strong> if banks are to maximise their<br />
earnings and control their risks. Convention<strong>al</strong> banks have the<br />
inter-bank market to help manage short- and medium-term<br />
liquidity, but what options are available to Islamic banks? Don<br />
Brownlow t<strong>al</strong>ks to Stella Cox, managing director at DDGI Ltd.<br />
Stella Cox,<br />
DDGI Ltd<br />
Liquidity management is the art of matching<br />
an organisation’s incoming and outgoing<br />
cash-flows so that it can usefully invest any<br />
excess funds. Such investment needs to be<br />
made in a way that provides a return while<br />
still <strong>al</strong>lowing the organisation quickly and<br />
easily to convert the investment back to<br />
cash. Convention<strong>al</strong> banks use the inter-bank<br />
market to buy and sell interest-bearing<br />
instruments amongst themselves to meet<br />
liquidity requirements.<br />
This inter-bank market is termed a<br />
secondary market because the instruments<br />
that are traded are <strong>no</strong>t bought directly from<br />
the <strong>issue</strong>rs, as they are in primary markets,<br />
but are traded among participating banks.<br />
In this way Bank A, which has excess<br />
liquidity, may buy a ‘Treasury 8%, maturity<br />
2009 Gilt’ from Bank B, which wishes to<br />
raise cash to meet outgoings. The Treasury<br />
Gilt was origin<strong>al</strong>ly <strong>issue</strong>d by the UK<br />
Government and bought by an investor<br />
bank in what is k<strong>no</strong>wn as the primary<br />
market. That <strong>no</strong>te is then traded –<br />
starting with the investor bank – and<br />
moves backwards and forwards between<br />
others as part of the secondary market.<br />
Islamic banks wishing to remain Shari’ah<br />
compliant can<strong>no</strong>t utilise these interestbearing<br />
inter-bank products. So Islamic<br />
banks have developed <strong>al</strong>ternative Shari’ahcompliant<br />
instruments and products. The<br />
most popular have been those based around<br />
murabaha, where the financi<strong>al</strong> contracts are<br />
supported by physic<strong>al</strong> assets. The contracts<br />
can be structured to achieve a risk/yield<br />
profile comparable to an inter-bank deposit.<br />
However, murabaha products have a<br />
significant disadvantage in that many are<br />
<strong>no</strong>t particularly liquid and are therefore<br />
more difficult to trade; others, because<br />
of Shari’ah stipulation, can <strong>no</strong>t be traded<br />
at <strong>al</strong>l.<br />
Historic<strong>al</strong> estimates indicate that up to 80<br />
per cent of Islamic banking assets are held<br />
in murabaha and other similar products.<br />
The net effect is that Islamic banks can<br />
suffer from asset concentration and from<br />
large holdings of short-term, but illiquid,<br />
investments. As a result, Islamic banks need<br />
to maintain much higher levels of cash to<br />
meet their liquidity requirements than their<br />
convention<strong>al</strong> banking counterparts. This<br />
reduces their profitability. Of more concern<br />
is the future compliance of Islamic banks to<br />
the Basel II accord, which requires a bank<br />
to provide capit<strong>al</strong> according to the risk<br />
weighting of its assets.<br />
Most market participants believe that<br />
the sukuk is the long-term way forward to<br />
enable Islamic banks to manage liquidity<br />
through a range of maturity profiles while<br />
still remaining Shari’ah compliant. This<br />
versatile instrument first appeared in<br />
M<strong>al</strong>aysia around 2000. Despite some initi<strong>al</strong><br />
scepticism in the Middle East, many of the<br />
structures supporting sukuk <strong>issue</strong>s have <strong>no</strong>w<br />
been accepted in this region. Although some<br />
observers estimate that the tot<strong>al</strong> sukuk<br />
market is <strong>no</strong>w worth around $54 billion,<br />
internation<strong>al</strong> users only account for around<br />
$25 billion. In both M<strong>al</strong>aysia and the<br />
Middle East, sovereign nations, banks and<br />
commerci<strong>al</strong> businesses have brought to<br />
market sukuk <strong>issue</strong>s. At sovereign level,<br />
the Government of Bahrain has led the<br />
way with its regular, consistent <strong>issue</strong>s<br />
of sukuk into the market.<br />
However, there needs to be a secondary<br />
market before the sukuk can become<br />
an instrument suitable for liquidity<br />
management. Such a secondary sukuk<br />
market will <strong>al</strong>low banks to buy and then<br />
readily sell sukuk for cash, depending on<br />
their liquidity needs. Once this market<br />
exists, Islamic banks will have a true<br />
liquidity management tool that they can<br />
38 IIBI www.islamic-banking.com