"Objects in history may be closer than they appear" – Eeyore for Vlad
Bankers are lining up to enroll in Canada’s first sharia finance course at Ontario’s Centennial College. Spring classes are full. ‘One of the fastest growing markets is the Islamic business community…..’ Meanwhile, an Ottawa Imam has issued a fatwa against the use of credit cards.
From The Globe and Mail
Elizabeth Church
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Responding to demand from the banking industry, Toronto’s Centennial College is about to become the first school in Canada to offer a course in the growing field of Islamic finance.
The new course will be offered online and led by an Islamic scholar who also is a financial expert. It will be available in September to the general public, but the college has already filled a spring class with staff from a major bank.
John Harris, a chair in Centennial’s business school, said the new course is a clear case of the college answering a need for training in industry.
“One of the fastest growing markets is the Islamic business community in Toronto and Vancouver,” Mr. Harris said.
By training staff on how to structure business deals to comply with Islamic principles, he said, banks are hoping to attract an increasing share of these commercial clients.
Islamic banking forbids interest and obliges deals to be based on physical assets, not on speculation. Products that comply with Islamic principles can be structured like lease-to-own arrangements or can replicate the structure of interest through cost-plus transactions, or by linking payments to returns on assets.
The influence of Islamic, or sharia, finance is increasing around the world, fuelled in part by the increasing wealth of the Gulf region. Several Western banks are already offering products that comply with Islamic practices. London-based banks have taken the lead and the new course at Centennial is one developed by the British-based Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.
The British groups describes its course as preparing candidates to hold key positions in the Islamic finance and insurance industries.
Mr. Harris said the college became aware of the need for the training through its links with the Toronto Financial Services Alliance.
As well as serving the industry, the course will be offered to students in the college’s accounting and financial services programs. The Certified General Accounts Association also is considering it as a part of professional development courses for its members, he said.
So far, the college has hired one instructor, but has others available if enrolment is high. The new course will be available through the province’s Ontario Learns site, the central hub for all online college instruction.
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This Harris academic and career “educator” must be the conscience cousing of Michael Harris of 580 CFRA- this thursday Michael was whining about the hit of this Hamas insect Mahmoud – still blaiming the occupation by Israel in the West Bank on the reson for muslim extremism and comparing Israel to Pinochet – this is typical of hard leftists to ignore anything that Israel has done – leaving south lebanon and leaving gaza – both times resulting in battles. Happily the only listeners are the chronic unemployable or those who have blackmailed their companies to put their names on a termainla sick list for UIC benefits
I am very pleased with the thought and don’t feel like adding anything in it. It a perfect answer.
Personal Finance Bible
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gregg