Career Options In Islamic Banking And Finance: Your Questions, Our Answers

Sunday August 8, 2010: Live Webinar from Dubai

Full Transcript

Atif: I’m very excited to be here, we’re normally accustomed to conducting face-to to-face training sessions
but it’s gratifying to see that we literally are covering the entire globe this evening. I see names all the
way from Calgary, Canada in the West where it it’ss early morning to Australia where its late n
night, so
welcome everyone. We have people from Dubai, Finland, U.K, Nigeria, so Alhamdulillah
lhamdulillah it’s a real
really
healthy mix and insha’Allah Islamic finance is for everyone, so insha’Allah we’ll try to make sure that all
the questions get answered and that we kkeep eep all of our answers as relevant as possible to this global
audience. I’m also joined by Yusuf Jha who is the Shariah controller of a major GCC Islamic bank, he’ll
also be joining us. Welcome Yusuf.

Yusuf:: Asaalamu alaykum, thank you for having me here. It’s a pleasure to be here, hopefully I can
benefit the listeners in terms of the questions they may have
have.

Atif: So we’ll begin right away. Insha’Allah we’re going to try to keep the webinar to less than 90
minutes, we’ll have an introductory session which will shortly be followed by the questions that we’ve
received in advance by email and then live questions and for for those of you who stick around to the end
we will also give people an opportunity to win various things including discounts, as well as other stuff.
stuf
Insha’Allah not limited to 1-on-1 1 career counseling with Islamic banking experts. So we’ll begin right
away,
ay, the webinar is “Career options in Islamic finance” and as most of you know, despite the global
financial
al crisis, Islamic finance has Alhamdulillah remained d quite resilient through much ofo the crisis. It
has not been completely insulated because obvious
obviously even many Shariah-compliant
compliant transactions,
transactions
however compliant they are,, are still going to be affected
ffected by the markets around that industry. So despite
that Islamic banks continue to thrive
thrive. There
here is expansion going on in a number of countries and over 500
Islamic banks, whether stand alone or subsidiaries are all over the world and central banks and countries
from as far flung regions as Japan, Canada where we were recently, and Australia have stated their
intention to expand with Islamic finance services.

The industry is growing

ing annually at a rate of over 20% which is actually a number that we hear a lot but
what is more relevant is that in some Islamic finance industries that are relatively mature like, Malaysia,
Pakistan, parts of the GCC, it is more st
stable and growing while in other places where it’s just being
introduced the rate of growth is much, much higher.

The S&P P believes that the potential for the market of Islamic financial services is close to $4 trillion and
like I mentioned there is a very positive interest from Muslim and non-Muslim
no Muslim countries around the world
with many of them starting with capital markets transactions from the get go and then moving on to
retail and corporate style products as they progress. So it’s good to see that regulatory,
regula legislative and
political changes in these countries are accommodating Islamic finance.

According to AT Kearney over 30,000 new Islamic banking jobs will have to be filled in the Gulf alone.
And there are actually bigger markets than the Gulf, obviously the UK, Europe, North America, these are
huge markets where Islamic finance remains largely untapped. There has been progress in places like
UK, Europe, but again, it’s still the tip of the iceberg.

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One of the best signs that
hat there is a critical mass of Islamic financial institutions and Islamic finance
practitioners is AAOIFI. AAOIFI stands for the Accounting and Auditing Organization of Islamic Financial
Institutions and it is the leading standard setting body in the industry.
industry. It is essentially an effort to bring
the top scholars from around the world from various regions together several time times a year to formulate
standards for various products and it is widely held to be the leading standard setting body and they’ve they
put out
ut a book called AAOIFI Shariah Standards, which I recommend to all of you to try to get a hold of.

This is a sample organizational chart of what an Islamic bank would look like and insha’Allah we’ll set this
as a context before we get into your specific questions and I’ll let Yusuf speak about the various areas
within Islamic finance. Yusuf is involved with the Shariah control aspect, he’s with the Shariah side in
terms of Shariah auditing of products and practices and I’ll let him explain how the various departments
interact.

Yusuf:: Assalamu alaykum everyone again, maybe just before I start speaking about the specific ways
the departments interact, it’s important to take in the general perspective which is that Islamic banks as
they function now are in effect
fect functioning very similar to the way conventional banks would function
with the difference being that they have the additional factor of trying to ensure that whatever
transactions they engage in are deemed to be Shariah-compliant
Shariah compliant by the Shariah board of the respective
banks. So when you look at the general structure of Islamic banks, they tend to mirror the structure of
conventional banks and so we find very much the same departments, the same skill set with certain
additional factors which insha’Allah we will hopefully cover today.

So if you look at for example thee chart we have here, we see obviously the CEO, the executive committee
and various executive decision making bodies and we see that the bank itself, Islamic banks tend to
incorporate a variety of functions amongst which is the corporate investment banking unit, which tend to
operate very much like conventional investment banks in the sense that they would be involved in for
example real estate, corporate banking in terms of syndications, investments, there would be property
management, there would be private equity, likewise the retail
retail banking and the credit division is very
much, once again similar in terms of its analysis in the way a conventional bank would operate.

Now the only caveat towards all of this would be that there would be an additional level of governance in
effect being
ng the Shariah division or the Shariah department of that institution and they would be given,
all of these various aspects of the banks would be given certain guidelines by which they would liaise
with the Shariah department. For example when it comes to investment banking there will be criterion
with regards to the equity, with regards to all the transactions it could be engag
engaged
ed in, at each stage the
Shariah division will be involved..

Atif:: Yusuf can you explain to us outsiders, I mean we get involved withth training and we hear a lot about
the Shariah control of Islamic banks where it’s
it s patchy and some banks a little bit more strident and
strong, where as in others it’s a bit more laissez faire, how does it work in your bank in terms of your
oversight on the various departments?

Yusuf: It’s a very valid question and I think that sort of put a finger on the factt that Islamic banking
although, I don’t think people can necessarily consistently say that it’s still in its infancy in the sense that
it has existed for about close to 20 years but the processes are still being defined and these standards by
which things are done vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from banks to bank. Now the particular bank
that I work for is known for its diligence when it comes to Shariah compliance which of course is the

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reason why Islamic banks are known as being Islamic, so you’d
you’d expect all Islamic banks to be very
diligent in their Shariah-compliant
compliant procedures by which they audit transactions, however, this obviously
to the degree to which it is done varies from bank to bank.

Now for example my bank when it comes to retail transactions

transactions we have what’s called a 100% audit
system whereby any transactions are entered into an automated system and there is specifically retail
Shariah auditors assigned to various transactions to okay the transaction. I myself work in the corporate
investment
stment banking and treasury aspects of my bank so for example my job is to review the transactions
transaction
that take place at the level of treasury to actually review the deals, the deal tickets to make sure that the
correspondence between the dealers at the outset
outse are actually Shariah-compliant
compliant and then also to make
sure that the specific sequences of the operations are done in a way that is Shariah
Shariah-compliant.

At the level of corporate banking, we’re involved in client meetings, we’re involved in initial structuring
structur of
transactions, we’re involved in the subsequent review of documentation. Investment banking likewise
we’re involved in when it comes to structures we’re constantly monitoring any equity that the bank has
purchased to make sure that it fulfills the Shariah
Shariah guidelines that are stipulated by the Shariah
department.

Atif: Now Yusuf, a lot of these are going to come up later on but I’d just like to ask initially in terms of a
person who is looking at his career options in Islamic finance
finance: what kind of person do you feel is ideal in
this market and what can a newcomer
comer do to make oneself ideal?

Yusuf: Well I think all of these questions have deep philosophical underpinnings in the sense that we
need to first define what direction we want Islamic
Islamic finance to go in and I think it’s important to perhaps
speak from an ‘as is’ perspective as the industry is today and perhaps touching a ‘to be’ perspective
which is the way the initial people who conceived of Islamic finance thought Islamic finance would be.
Now Islamic finance as it is today is very much a mirror of conventional finance, so if you look at this
diagram today you’d find that most of the senior management would actually be individuals who’ve spent
the bulk of their careers in conventional
conventional banking and so they’ve made a move across from conventional
banking into
to Islamic banking and a result the paradigms or the ways in which they function are very
much rooted in the way a conventional bank would function.

So the mechanisms by which they w would analyze risk for example would be completely conventional and
this is actually something of particular importance to Islamic finance because in Islamic finance, the
transactions themselves, the Shariah basis for a transaction to be legit is often root
rooted in valid risk being
accommodated. Now this goes against the way conventional bankers would be given to operate in the
sense that the often only form of risk they are familiar with is credit risk. For example a classic would be
an Ijarah, it would be unheard of for a conventional banker to actually conceive of the fact that the lessor
if it were to be a bank would bear major maintenance risk wher
whereas
eas this is an essential risk from
f an
Islamic lease perspective and a key difference between an Islamic lease
leas and a conventional lease.

So what often happens in terms of the ‘as is’ is that most of the Islamic banking personnel are usually
experienced conventional bankers and this actually is just simply to do with the nature of the industry in
the sense that Islamic
slamic banks in effect have been in terms of customer expectations, in terms of the
regulations, in terms of various factors,
factors are expected to perform like conventional banks with additional
caveat that they are Shariah-compliant.
compliant. And so as a result, because
because the expectations of the shareholders
and the various stakeholders, the essential management tends to be conventional banking.

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Now as I touched upon, most of the people who can actually move now into Islamic banking are usually
people who have a lot of experience
xperience in conventional banking. Now what about people who want to join
afresh, this is an emerging industry and I think it to people’s advantage who are actually coming into this
field basically with a solid qualification under their belt. Their qualification
quali cation could be an academic
qualification or a practical focused qualification of the sort Ethica is offering and the idea being that it
would reflect their actually going into the industry with a basic understanding of how an Islamic bank is
meant to operate.

Atif: Now I see a lot of you guys are coming up with very good questions and we promise to get to as
many questions as possible so I would ask everybody to hang on to their questions and insha’Allah when
we go to live question and answer, you can type up your questions in the public chat area. We’re going
to go to the next slide and then shortly thereafter
there we’ll be at the Q and A’s, which we’re
we’ at now.
Excellent, so your questions, our answers. So we’ll start with Kenan,, I hope I pronounced that correctly,
correctly
from Canada who says:

Attendee (Kenan):: I’m a student at Dalhousie

Da University in Halifax, Canada, studying commerce and
finance, I have an opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia and I’m interested in making the transition from
conventional to Islamic finance. From your experience what is the best way for me to get into the Islamic
finance industry in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in general?

Atif: Well I will take a first jab at that and then I’ll ask Yusuf to follow up. We’ll try to keep our answers
brief and if you have follow-up up questions then you can actually email us. And obviously we can speak one
on one by phone or in person if you happen to be in Dubai.

I happened to be in Canada last week and we met with the government and there is certainly a lot of
movement towards Islamic finance happening in Canada, so if you have an opportunity to go to Saudi
Arabia that’s great but you
u should certainly look at Toronto and speak to the Ontario government,
gov in
particular the Financing Authority
uthority and the Big 5 banks and try to get a handle on what’s happening there
and when things are going to happen because it is certainly the case that iff you have an early start in
your country then you are obviously better off than the people who come in later. So in terms of an
opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia,
Arabia that’s great, obviously that market is well established.
established

And we found that from our experience at Ethica in terms of helping people with recruitment we foundfou
that the best way to get into the industry is to demonstrate interest
interest. So to be a banker or a student who
has no demonstrated experience or interest in Islamic finance, you’re starting off with a slight handicap
compared to somebody, for instance
instance, who hasas done a consulting project, an internship, even contributed
to a publication or a conference, attended a course or received certification or obviously received
something like a degree, so these are obviously all examples of demonstrating one’s own interest.
intere

A good starting point if you happen to be in Saudi Arabia on a visit, is informational

ational interviews conducted
at banks, insha’Allah we can at a later time communicate about opportunities within Saudi Arabia and
point you in that direction, so there are those opportunities and Yusuf who also transitioned into the
industry several years ago is now based in the UAE can also shed some light for Kenan.

Yusuf: I definitely, in terms of what Atif has said, I would definitely echo everything he said and I think
maybe just boil it down to basic facts, you need to get the words Islamic finance on your CV and you’ve
got various roots and the best thing is for you to get multiple roots so that could involve publications,
attending conferences, getting some sort of qualification,
qualification, a qualification is important and there are

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various qualifications existing, we highlighted Ethica’s qualification and the various other qualifications out
there in the market.

To get that on your CV is something definitely you should try and do because the raw facts are that the
industry today, although it’s in dire need of personnel, there needs to be a way in which a person can
distinguish himself simply because in light of the credit crisis, recruitment isn’t at the peak that it once
was andd may not be for the foreseeable future so for most people coming into the Islamic finance
industry it is better that if they want to come into the industry as a key they should actually show their
interest and get that word ‘Islamic finance’ on their CV.

Aside from just getting it on the CV, I mean obviously the idea being that the fact tthat their interest
should mean that they’ve actually studied or taken some interest by attending some conferences,
contributing to publications, reading magazines, and so on. With regards to the GCC specifically the
institutions that exist that usually practice Islamic finance can be usually counted literally on the fingers
of your hand and what would be a good idea would be to actually visit their websites, send your CVs
across, take a trip down to research the actual industries and the banks and the institutions and try and
see how best what you’d like to do would fit in within the ethos of that institution and usually they’re
fairly open in terms of people being able to come and submit their CVs and so on. I think the GCC
especially the UAE, despite the credit crisis there is still a recruitment drive taking place.

Atif: We’ve put this question at the beginning because its general enough to inform many other
questions and questioners and that isis, how to break in. Many of us who started off in the industry, I
started my banking career about 20 years ago on Wall Street in Morgan
Morgan Stanley, now as a conventional
investment banker trying to get into Islamic finance and these were early days, back in about 2001 and
back then, the only way was to basically muscle your way into a bank or in front of a scholar and a lot of
the work that we did initially was unpaid, so an unpaid internship. We actually executed transactions as
interns to start off with even though we were ourselves experienced bankers and then from there you
transition into paid work. Though there’s a number of ways tto do it.

Yusuf: I definitely would follow that up,up my own background, maybe this is of benefit to the listeners,
like Atif in the sense that I didn’t actually come from a finance background, I came from a business
consultancy background and when I initially
initially decided to look into the option of Islamic finance, the options
that were open to me involved a significant pay cut and involved me to actually in effect doing d an
internship. But what I found was then very shortly, within a span of 2 years years, simply having
havin that
experience on your CV is a huge difference in this emerging market.
market

Whereas
hereas Islamic finance expands to the degree that we’ve outlined,
outlined close to 20%
20%, and new markets are
emerging. The he demand for experience is so huge that even if you’ve got a year toto two years of
experience on your CV, and that may involve a degree of sacrifice,
sacrifice or it may involve not potentially
earning or taking a benefit, that
at you probably would have, had you not gone ne down that route but then
the
you’ll find that simply having that experience becomes a key differentiator when it comes to going in and
it’s very easy to then go onto
nto more senior positions within the industry.

Atif: Okay excellent. We have a question here from Adeeba in the UK.

Attendee (Adeeba): I’m a journalist with 12 years experience, I recently signed up for a distance
learning course on Islamic banking
ing in London and now I’m seriously thinking of a career change. I’m
totally new to the subject area, number one, do I stand a chance of being employed by an Islamic

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financial institution? Number 2, would you advise me to do an MA or an MSc in Islamic banking after
finishing my distance learning course and number 3, how can I capitalize on my Central Asian
background and knowledge?

Atif: So
o a lot of what we’ve already said applies to the first question and the answer is certainly ‘yes’.
What we’ve found, we have over 1200 students at Ethica and this broad cross section of practitioners and
students, peoplele shouldn’t try and make a complete 100% U-turn. So if you’re a journalist, there may
actually be a niche for you as a journalist with a Central Asian background who has knowledge of Islamic
finance.

I mean how many people can call themselves experienced journalists in that part of the worlworld which is
becoming increasingly important given its hydrocarbon advantage and have practical Islamic financial
product knowledge. I would say very, very few.
few So o if you want to distinguish yourself, ultimately you will
be compared against your
our peers, so that
th I think is a real big advantage that you should leverage from
your experience as a journalist.

Yusuf:: I just want to follow up and once again echo the same things as Atif in the sense that prior to
this question we’ve been speaking mormore of Islamic finance from
m a banking perspective or financial
institution perspective but just as in conventional finance, you’ve got a whole set of attached career
options, amongst them is financial journalism, this is something that is emerging as well because as
Islamic finance is growing there are road shows taking place, there are publications involved, there are
magazines there are bodies that distribute newsletters and I myself have just come from a road show in
India literally a few days ago and huge demand there and I think this will only increase and anyone who’s
got a prior experience in journalism would more than likely be able to find opportunities. I mean
Malaysia’s an excellent place for this.

A couple of individuals, I’m not going to mention the organization, but a couple of individuals who
formerly worked for Euromoney publications and they went wen and set up their own company which is very
significant within the Islamic finance news domain so likewise there are plenty of opportunities out there
without necessitating
ating for someone to literally make a career change from journalism into banking. Now
having said that if that’s something that interests you then falling onto your second questions, there are
advantages to formerly doing a course, I don’t know if Atif has anything to say about this.

Atif: Well our experience has been that generally recruiters and banks want people with practical
knowledge of Islamic finance particularly the products and while Masters and MSc might be useful if
you’re younger, if you have 122 years of experience, you’re probably not 20 so I think at the stage you’re
at, what banks are looking for is people with practical knowledge and for that unfortunately the Masters
route is sometimes frustrating for people because they’re learning theory from a lot of people, professors
basically, who don’t execute Islamic finance transactions for a living.
living So if you can find such a program
where you get practical knowledge that’s great, but this has just been our experience.

Yusuf: I second that. I think that there are quite a few programs emerging now maybe seeing from the
UK there are quite a few degrees coming now there’s always been Durham, now the University of
Reading’s offering an MSc in
n Islamic banking and investment banking which involves some time spent in
Malaysia at INCEIF but obviously working in the industry I myself didn’t take a masters route or a formal
academic route and I have found that when liaising with individuals who may have taken an academic

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route, and also being involved to some
som degree with them within the bank’s internal recruitment when it
comes to people coming on n board that what Atif said is correct that the emphasis is on practical
experience and even if someone has done a masters or an MSC.

There often needs to be some sort so of demonstration whereby they can demonstrate they have practical
experience, which is something I think most of these courses are recognizing which is why often for
example I mentioned INCEIF in Malaysia, it’s an institute that involves students as part
par of their MSc being
placed in Islamic banks. Because for much of the time previous,
previous what’s been found is that a lot of
o
discussions are taking place at the board or theoretical level which needs to be done because there still
needs to be direction defined for Islamic finance but at the same what’s happening on the ground seemseems
to be travelling a bit too fast
ast for what’s happening at the universities and so there needs to be a coupling
between academic knowledge and practical experience and if you can’t find a program like that there are
programs that exist which offer practical experience and outside knowledge.

Atif:: Okay Farzana from Melbourne.

Attendee (Farzana): How w are the educational programs in Islamic finance different from one country
to another there are a variety
ty of programs from Malaysia and the UAE, which certificates
certificate or educational
background is needed to get into the Islamic finance industry?

Atif: As I mentioned
entioned earlier, AAOIFI is the leading standard setting body these are standards followed by
scholars from Malaysia all the way to the US and in between so the impetus should be to follow these
standards not just at the banking level but also at a training
training level and one thing that you can do as a
prospective student is to ensure that your certificate or educational pursuit conforms to AAOIFI’s latest
Shariah standards, so whether it’s in Malaysia or the UAE, what really matter is not the location but the
standard being followed.

Atif: Next question is Hammad from Karachi

Attendee (Hammad): What do I need to know to work in the investment banking arm of an Islamic
bank?

Atif: Yusuf’s bank actually has such an arm and since he’s actually in the investment banking department
who better to answer this than Yusuf.

Yusuf:: I’m not formally in the investment banking department but I do liaise with them. I think if you’ve
got investment nt banking experience prior to coming to an Islamic bank then obviously that would help.
Investment banking just as a point of information is a form of banking that is quite consistent with
Islamic banking anyway and for example people who may have worked as analysts at investment banks
and may have been involved in general investment banking transactions often have directly transferable
skills to an Islamic banking context. Apart from certain conditions that need to be stipulated that they will
need to follow
low with regards to the Shariah when it comes to buying and selling equity, when it comes to
taking stakes in companies.

Atif: Matthew from Boston.

Attendee (Matthew): Which countries present the best Islamic banking employment
employment prospects for a
westerner? I’m willing to relocate anywhere opportunities may be presented.

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Atif: Matthew that’s an excellent approach whether you’re a westerner or not, ultimately the best
opportunities for employment are usually where the best opportunities for experience exist a
and that’s
where the most transactional volume takes place so for that the number one location is the Gulf. I mean
you can say Malaysia but we are quite vocal about the Malaysian experience which has been that there
are a couple of transactions namely the b
buy-back
back transaction and the resale of debt instrument that is
really actually something separate from AAOIFI and other standards used around the world
world.

So Malaysia iss actually not the best place to get your initial experience.
experience Although
lthough we’ve been there a few
times, they are trying to change that aspect of their industry but it does remain something insulated
standards-wise
wise from the rest of the world. They have high transactional volume but in terms of
experience we recommend places where global standards are re advocated which would be the Gulf and
obviously the UK and, coming along quickly,
quickly Europe as well.

Having said that, since you’re in North America there are growing number of local and community based
opportunities in the US, I was sitting next to Stephen Ranzini at the G20 Islamic finance summit and he is
working on an excellent Islamic financial product out of the mid-west
mid so there’s a number of local
opportunities within the US as well. So that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to relocate outside of the
US for instance. So you can look locally, sometimes the grass is greener but sometimes it actually is
greener so I would say in terms of volume, the Gulf, in terms of experience the Gulf G or the UK but
certainly there is a lot of stuff happening in various
vari other parts of the world. Kabira from Luxembourg.
Luxembourg

Attendee (Kabira): What are the options for a compliance officer, I’m studying for the ICMA diploma in
Islamic finance in the University of Reading in the UK is that a recognized diploma in the Middle East?

Atif: Certainly you know Kabira we cannot comment on whether something is recognized or not. not
Ultimately it all boils down to what standards are being advocated so we can’t speak specifically about
Reading but obviously it’s a renowned university and I’m
I’m sure that they have high quality education. In
terms of what standards are being used, that’s something you’ll have to research yourself and given that
you are fromm Luxembourg or at least based there
there, there is a lot of stuff happening with the Luxembourg
government .

They were recently here in Dubai advocating Luxembourg as a major Islamic finance hub in Europe, so
insha’Allah there are opportunities
ies there whether for a compliance officer or otherwise.
otherwise So wherever
there is Islamic finance there will be a need for compliance officers, in terms of the recognition of the
diploma you’ll have to research the standards that they’re teaching there for yourselves. Obviously we
can’t comment. Moving on Masroor
Masroo in Bahrain.

Attendee (Masroor):: I’m an Arts graduate and a certificate holder from the Chartered Insurance
Institute in the UK, I’m working in Bahrain with a retail bank selling asset based products, how can I join
the Islamic banking industry?

Yusuf: Well Masroor, r, you’re in the right place because Bahrain’s obviously quite a significant market
player when it comes to Islamic finance,
finance being the place where AAOIFI is based and being a place where
several Islamic banks exist so the best course of action would be to attend conferences, to forward your
CV either electronically or in person with institutions and just generally networking, I mean the fact that
you’ve got qualifications, the fact that you’re already based within the region are both advantageous.

Atif: Abdul Basit asks.

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Attendee (Abdul Basit):: I have done my MBA in Banking and Finance with a specialization in
International Banking, where do I fit in,
in in the Islamic banking industry?

Yusuf: Once again, I think as we said previously, the fact that if you’ve got qualifications in banking or
you’ve got experience in banking in general, this is something to your advantage but it would be
important to try and supplement that with specific Islamic banking experience or something relevant and
that may involve doing a course either an academic course or a short professional course online or
otherwise.

Atif: And I think specifically in terms of getting experience, what we’re referring to when we say
experience, we’re not saying general experience but specific product knowledge. Now whether you get
that product knowledge through an internship at a bank or through a certificate course, you can get that
knowledge. Because when you walk into that interview,
interview, you have to definitely know the difference
between the various products. And nd if you have that you’re obviously going to have a huge advantage
over other people applying for the same job.

Yusuf: Definitely,
efinitely, I recall my own interview, I was specifically asked
a sked about products and product specific
knowledge is something at a premium within the Islamic finance industry.

Atif: Hamidul in Canada asks.

Attendee (Hamidul): I had 12 years of banking experience when I moved to Canada, these days I
work as a conventional accountant and I’m pursuing Ethica’s CIFE, hoping that I’ll be able to quit my
current job and join Islamic banking. What does Ethica
Ethic Institute do to help those
se who finish the CIFE
training and certification?

Atif: Hamidul thanks for your question.

question We e will get to that momentarily but I’ll just tell you two things
that we do. At Ethica once you graduate from our training program,
program which lasts approximately 4 months,
mont
and is conducted 100% online, you are given the privilege of a 1-on-1
1 1 career counseling session,
session whether
conducted at our offices here in Dubai or online or over the phone
phone.

So that’s Ethica’s 1-on-1

1 career counseling.
counseling And then the second thing that we do is what we call Ethica’s
Recruiter’s Database
atabase in which we actually fast forward your CV to various bankers and recruiters globally.
So that’s how we try to help our students and Alhamdulillah
lhamdulillah we’re happy to say that people have come as
employed practitioners
ioners and have gone on to get their jobs after the CIFE graduation. So Alhamdulillah
despite the bad market there seems to be some hope. Tauseef in Dubai

Attendee (Tauseef): I have 9 years experience in the trade finance division

division of a conventional bank,
what
hat should I do to join an Islamic bank?

Yusuf: Well I think once again, consistent with the other questions is that you have to get product
knowledge. The function of a Trade Finance department would be very consistent with an Islamic bank’s
Trade Finance department with additional, again caveat being certain conditions are followed with
regards to the Shariah in terms of the nature of the LCs and various other things
ngs that are usually audited
by the Shariah department.

Atif: what we’re going to do is we ar

aree going to wrap up with a little bit about Ethica and then we are
going to go to our live Q and A. We’ll just go to live Q and A after we tell you a little about the Ethica

www.EthicaInstitute.com | Page 9 of 17
program. We have more training than anyone and that grows on a weekly basis, this is not actually the
entire list of training and certification modules but down
down the left side of the columns you see the modules
you need to complete in order to get your CIFE, the Certified Islamic Finance Executive. And that’s the
certificate which is actually framed and couriered to you.
you

Soo an opportunity to hang that up in your

yo ur office or study. And like we mentioned our relationship goes
beyond certification, its standardized,
standardized approved by leading scholars and we are to our knowledge the only
institute in the world that bases its content on AAOIFI, the Accounting and Auditing Organization
O for
Islamic Financial Institutions. And
nd our Ethica Recruiter Database
atabase fast tracks your CV to various banks and
our 1-on-1 1 career counseling sits you with the subject matter expert to try to find you the best direction
and answer your questions in terms of career growth.

More people choose Ethicas CIFE than any otheother Islamic finance certificate, alhamdulillah,
lhamdulillah, so we are
number one in customer rankings, we have a 100% user satisfaction rate, everyone’s come away
satisfied and if you’re not satisfied
ed you have a 30 day guarantee.

What we are going to do at the very end after our live session is give all of you a downloadable version
of our video ‘Why Islamic finance?’ and 3 lucky attendees,
attendees we’ll show you how at the very, very end how
to get the 1-on1
n1 career counseling and also how to get the special offer for CIFE’s training and
certification.

So now we’ll go to live questions, we’ve got

go 30 minutes left, in
n this time we’re going to answer your
questions live and we will begin with this question:

Anees asks

Attendee (Anees): I have very good experience in fixed income products and a good knowledge of
Islamic finance, how can I join an Islamic finance institution, my aim is to work on the structuring of
Islamic finance products.

Atif: I think Yusuf you would be a good person to answer that.

Yusuf: I think much of what we’ve answered already probably would answer the bulk of the questions
posed by the listener here, this once again is something that is consistent with the previous questions.
The point being that the person who has asked the question has some experience in what would be
conventional banking, he’s got probably got theoretical experience of Islamic banking
bank and wants to make
the transition and the way to do that we’ve mentioned would probably involve supplementing your
experience with either a qualification of some sort, putting the
he word Islamic finance on your CV and
applying to the banks and trying to take
take that first break and maybe that first break may involve a
sacrifice of some sort or it may not involve a sacrifice
sacr of some sort butt as part of a transition, the
experience that you’ve had even though fixed income specifically in the way it’s done is pr probably not
consistent with Islamic banking, there are products in Islamic banking that economically are similar in the
way they’re done provided they follow some aspects of the Shariah and so it wouldn’t necessarily be
something that would be of detriment.

Atif: Hamidul
dul Hanan has a question for Atif.

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Attendee (Hamidul Hanan): I’ve gone through some research about Islamic banking and finance,
what I’ve seen that it is very slowly growing while I heard that it’s very hard for Islamic banks to enter
into the banking field in Canada. You have already told that Canada is thinking about that. What is your
comment, I’m thinking about ut Islamic banking
ban in Canada?

Atif: Basically what’s happened is that Canada has shifted its interest in Islamic finance into high gear
with a number of conferences as well as interest from banks and regulators.
regulators Andnd what that means for
people who are professionals or students, it means obviously opportunities. Now these oppoopportunities have
also been followed by the academic institutions. Centennial, Ryerson, Rotman, University of Toronto,
McGill, a number of universities have either expressed their interest in launching an Islamic finance
course or have already launched an Islamic
Isl finance course.

It doesn’t mention in your question whether you have experience in banking but I’ll assume that you
have no experience in Islamic finance and perhaps no experience in banking in general but if you do have
experience, obviously that’s great. What I would do is that in Canada specifically approach the Big 5
banks because in varying degrees all of them behind the scenes are doing something right now in Islamic
finance and they’re going to need people so you’re going to have to go to them.

Obviously they’re not going to be public about many of their products because for instance they want to
have first mover advantage in a particular product so in that respect you’re going to have to do a bit of
mining and searching around, asking around and and networking through that. What I can do is I can give
you my email address and of course everyone else has access to this email and you’re welcome to
contact me directly, bit I’ll give you my email address and I will be able to forward you specific names of
individuals in Canada in relation to your background.
background So hopefully that can be helpful.
helpful So my email
address is atif at ethicainstitue.com. You can always go to www.EthicaInstitute.com and send an email to
the contact email and that’ll also get to me, so hopefully that will answer your question.

Momin asks

Attendee (Momin): I hold a diploma in Islamic Banking and Insurance form IIBI along with a Masters
in Management Studies in Finance and have been working in a conventional private bank but have had
problems getting into the Islamic finance industry. How should I go about it
it, would a PhD in Islamic
finance help?

Atif: I think what you have already in terms of academic background is fair fairly
ly strong. In terms of getting
certification obviously something practical would also help.
help I think a PhD is not necessarily that much at
this stage because that means three to four years of your life while the ultimate result may or may not be
helpful. Whereas
ereas I think if you get actual practical experience right away given your conventional banking
experience it’ss obviously more useful, so something more practical is obviously better than something
academic.

Yusuf: I’d second that, I mean just purely at the level of my own bank, if I look across most of the
individuals working in senior management positions I liaise with, I don’t think anyone has a PhD. And the
sole exception of someone coming in as a PhD, I think h he
e was recruited more on the basis of his previous
experience than the fact that he had a PhD. A PhD is a pointer to someone being more research oriented
perhaps going in to the field of academia more and I suppose if you’re looking to enter the industry, then
t
I don’t think a PhD would be necessary and definitely in terms of what you’ve written with regards to the

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experience you’ve already had, you’ve got the essential tools to make the transition. It would just be a
case of banging on the door.

Attendee (Angelica): Assalamu alaykum to both speakers and participants, I’m a lawyer with a post- post
graduate degree in law, seven years PQE, four years UAE experience based in Dubai. As a lawyer I face a
large amount of cases that relate to Islamic banking and Shariah-compliant
Shariah investments, I am very
interested in expanding my brief knowledge of Islamic banking by obtaining Ethica’s certificate. The
subject is of very much interest to me to the point that I am considering a career switch. Would this
certificate be beneficial / sufficient to me as a lawyer pursuing a career in the Islamic banking industry in
the region? Are there any training opportunities with any reputable local institutions in order to gain a
high standard of practical knowledge and experience? What so sort
rt of employment opportunities would be
available for me?

Atif: Good news is we have several lawyers currently working on their CIFEE certification at Ethica and in
fact our subject matter experts, some of them are actual practicing lawyers, award winning lawyers in
fact in Islamic finance for instance
tance Imran Mufti from Lovells with whom we work extensively
extensively. With whom
we’re also in the process of putting together one of the most advanced CIFEs in the industry, the
Advanced CIFE in Law.

So it is an important area and it is specific to lawyers and it’s

it important that lawyers have Islamic finance
product knowledge. Ultimately what does a an Islamic finance lawyer do? He helps document, execute and
review Islamic finance transactions and to a large part that invol
involves
ves a lot of product knowledge. So not
just duping and revising contracts but you’re also trying to get your hands around structuring and
executing these transactions,, this requires in depth Islamic finance knowledge, product knowledge.
knowledge So to
answer your question
uestion in terms of ‘would the certificate be beneficial,’ obviously our certificate is designed
for people who are from broad backgrounds,
background not just lawyers, but I think what you should do is get a
basic general certificate first and then move onto an advanced certificate in Law.

Yusuf: I just wanted to comment, as Atif highlighted a lot of what

what I do is actually, or what Angelica
An
probably does is what overlapss with what I do and vice versa, in the sense that I often have to review
documentation and a lot of the time I’m involved in structuring and liaising with leading law firms and it’s
a consistent theme, as you are probably aware if you
y are based in the region, from what I gather you’ve
worked on Islamic finance transactions, it’s a key field and you find almost all the major firms have an
Islamic banking unit or they have experts in Islamic banking and it’s something that is a key differentiator
when it comes to counsels.

I didn’t quite gather what you meant by career switch whether that would entail you leaving your law
firm, leaving law and perhaps switching more formerly to the field so you’d enter for example as internal
counsel within banks, if that’s what you mean then I think your experience would actually be a huge plus
because many Islamic banks are looking for experienced, highly qualified lawyers and if you’re keen on
making the switch Atif is a point of contact
contact, you can contact him and I’m sure, he knows myself, he
knows other individuals who he e can forward your CV to.

But in regards to qualification I think it’s a definite advantage, the brief amount that I’ve seen Ethica, I’m
not affiliated to them in anyway so I’m not plugging them but in that they are very solid when it comes to
practical experience and I do believe as part of their ongoing modules they’re
they looking to cover
documentation which is something that is very rare, I mean it’s something that’s not there in the

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industry, specific documentation, how to go about drafting, how to go about reviewing specific Shariah
issues that arise when it comes to documentation and I think if some
something like that was to be there that
would be a huge advantage but there’s nothing that needs
need experience and if you’ve already got
experience and you’re looking to make the transition than that would be a huge plus.

Atif: One thing I could also

lso point you guys to is that you can get free contracts to download, just go to
www.EthicaInstitute.com , click on the training videos page, it’s on the header of the homepage. If you
see the training videos, you’ll actually see at the very bottom standardized contracts for all the major
products. Those are free of charge so you guys all have access to that and lawyers and bankers alike will
benefit tremendously.

Attendee (Yusuf): What is the role of IT professionals in Islamic banks, I have 3 years of experience in
the IT industry, should I first start from the IT perspective while gaining experience in Islamic finance
and then switch to the finance side or should I first start from the IT perspective
perspect ive in an Islamic bank while
gaining experience in Islamic finance and then switch to the finance side?

Atif: My advice is always to do what you really want to do. do So o if you really like the IT side then pursue
that. Iff you really like the finance side then pursue that. If your background is 3 years experience in the
IT industry, the execution of an Islamic finance transaction is necessarily different from a conventional
transaction and in n the absence of training and well trained individuals you need to create
crea systems that
are in place that will dummy proof the execution.
execution So that for instance somebody doesn’t present an
invoice and then say I’d like to do a Murabaha.
Murabaha So that’s problematic obviously for those of you who
know how Murabahas are supposed to be co conducted.
nducted. Now whats your role in that? Obviously if you have
an IT experience combined with product knowledge in Islamic finance you’re golden, so I would say once
you have those things and then you go into an Islamic financial institution fully employed then th you can
obviously select what interests you.

Yusuf: Just to touch upon that question perhaps just in terms of my understanding, I’m not entirely clear
what Yusuf means when he says he’s in the IT industry and he’s looking to shift to the finance side, does
that mean that he wants to shift to Islamic finance while continuing to work in IT or is that just a
complete shift either just as a point of information for Yusuf we share the same name and we also share
potentially the same career paths because I was initially a technology consultant and now I’m working in
the Shariah division so things can happen and it’s about what Atif said, about pursuing what you want to
do so if you really feel you want this, a specific aspect of Islamic
Islamic finance that you want to do, then you
take the means to do it which would involve getting experience, practical experience, getting a
qualification, studying and so on, mind you having said, as part of my role as Shariah auditor, I’m often
reviewing IT systems because this is an expanding thing, Atif touched on Murabaha, many of the
Murabaha transactions and transactions in general involve specific sequencing and systems need to be
able to effect this.

There’s specific terminology, specific fields that dictate whether a transaction’ss Shariah
Shariah-compliant or not
and there’s much software being developed now that would probably involve IT professionals who have a
degree of experience when it comes to Islamic finance so there are plenty of opportunities in the IT field
whereby you could enter into Islamic finance.

Atif: Question from Tushaar,, a very interesting one

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Attendee (Tushaar): Shouldn’t lack of experience in conventional banking be a positive sign as then
one could structure true Shariah compliant products
products which are not replicas of conventional banking
products. Dos this statement hold true in reality for the Islamic finance industry?

Atif: First obviously conventional banking experience is not necessarily an impediment to being able to
structure truly Shariah-compliant
compliant products but having said that what you’re getting at, I understand
which is that innocence of conventional banking is something useful, ignorance is sometimes bliss and
not having this background of interest b
based pricing, a good sign for instance one can look at equity
based products in a fresh light than something that’s coloured with riba.

And I would say, I think that it’s certainly a positive sign we’ve seen examples in places like Pakistan
where a lot of young bankers come straight out of post-graduate
graduate diplomas in Islamic finance and go
straight into Islamic finance and they don’t have the intellectual baggage that for instance a 60 year old
CEO, you know, we’ve been training people in their
the 50s and 60s who are upper managem
management who simply
don’t understand how money can be made in Islamic finance whereas people who are in their 20s, who
are fresh in the industry and they are completely positive
positive.

So that’s
at’s obviously a good thing, wouldn’t say whether it’s a question of whether one could structure
them but whether it’s an attitude thing and coming from an investment banking background, I’m very
comfortable with equity based products and I in fact find them to be much more profitable, much more
resilient and much more robust in thethe absence of a debt based environment and I think that could
obviously be a big plus sign. What do you think Yusuf?

Yusuf: I thank Tushar for actually raising this question, it’s a valid question perhaps before we go
answering other questions this question
question is probably important to address and I would say there are
various facets to this question, but Islamic finance is in essence paradigm shift, it’s a completely different
way of seeing banking, it’s a completely different way of seeing the function of money.
mon

The first part of the question is would there be an advant

advantage
age for someone to not having necessarily gone
into conventional finance and the answer is “yes” provided they are grounded in what Islamic banking is
but the reality which is perhaps the second part of the question that Tushaar raised is that we don’t have
enough out there in terms of people understanding how Islamic banking operates, how its intended to
operate and the way Islamic banking has develop
developed as opposed to its original theory
theor is in effect
operating very much in a conventional banking paradigm but ensuring that the models being practiced
are in conformity with the Shariah and in light of just the reality of the situation conventional banking
experience often is of benefit to peo
people entering the industry.

Having said that, I myself didn’t have any conventional banking experience and I don’t think it’s it
necessary for someone who wants to enter the industry to necessarily undergo conventional banking
experience. There are many ways they can enter Islamic banking afresh.
fresh. What’s important is that people
who make the transition based on, I would hope so, there are economic drivers that determine peoples’peoples
decisions but if they actually believe in the paradigm in Islamic banking, how it is
i s different, why it is
different, then they make the decision to leave conventional banking based on and actual belief in Islamic
banking, that would be of importance.

Atif: Omar

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Attendee (Omar): I’m a legal practitioner with some years of experience and att present I’m in the final
stage of my PhD program in Dispute Resolution with a background in Shariah. I prpresented a number of
papers on Dispute Resolution
esolution in the Islamic finance industry, in some conferences, what are the job
prospects for someone like me in the Islamic finance industry?

Atif: Yusuf, I think you’d be a good person to answer that.

Yusuf:: Well Dispute Resolution is a huge, huge topic in Islamic finance simply because of the nature of
contract law and the nature of transactions, that most major transactions are usually referenced to
English law for example and the Shariah implications of that in the sense that the contract itself while
being intended to be governed by the rules of Shariah is ultimately going to be governed by the rules of a
country that may not necessarily have the Shariah in the forefront, so this is a huge topic and has various
dimensions and a huge discussion point obviously we don’t have the scope for to cover here but the fact
that you have contributed, the conferences that you mention, the IDB, Islamic Development
Develo Bank...
these are huge, huge bodies and you’ve contributed to them shows that you’ve already got a fair foot in
the industry and being a legal practitioner I would expect that there’d
there be huge job prospects for someone
like yourself.

The fact that you’ve a got a practitioners background as well as someone who’s contributed academically
shows you’ve got an interest and you’ve obviously presented papers in conferences I would definitely
expect you to have a huge background and once again I would say that’s it’s always good to supplement
this with product knowledge and I would say just by what you’ve written here, feel free to forward you
CV to Atif and Atif can obviously liaise with people like myself and obviously
y other people who would be
quite keen to have someone like you on board.
board

Atif: By the way, I have to mention that we get so many CVs that we have to have a filtering mechanism
so what we do is we give preference to our own graduates so Ethica’s CIFE, so obviously people who
have gone through our rigorous certification are people we can obviously recommend which we do on a
regular basis, so I should
uld point that out.

So moving onto the next question

Attendee (Sene): If you wantt to get started in Islamic finance what do you suggest in terms of training
and then is there any prior experie
experience
nce one must have before job hunting and then I’m more interested in
risk management so is this sector developed, is there any career option in this particular sector for an
experienced
perienced conventional banker? What
W do you mean by that? How many years?

Atif: So
o a number of questions, several we’ve already answered which is in terms of training we
recommend any training that imparts practical knowledge. Unfortunately as we often quip there’s a lot of
theory and coffee but not a lot of subject matter expertise so that’s the number one thing, to actually
know the products, so knowing beyond the terminology but actually the execution, how things are
structured, how things interact and obviously how things get transacted so that’s number one.

In terms of prior experience

ience again I go back to our first question which is if you h
have demonstrated
experience however
ever that is demonstrated, it is good. The highest quality demonstration is within an
Islamic financial institution. So that is the number one thing that you can do
do,, get inside, whether it is paid
or unpaid, obviously unpaid is less desirable but in this market whatever little experience you can get
generally translates into a full time experience because people sit up and notice, we’ve seen this again

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and again we actually
ctually helped out one individual who worked at a law firm unpaid for 3 months and now
he’s working at a law firm paid full time. So a little bit of sacrifice can get a lot of results.

In terms off risk management, there’s a lot of Islamic finance specific risk management because as you
know
now that there is the whole aspect of asset based transactionss and the risk profile of an asset based
transaction is completely different form one which is assetless. We have a whole module on risk
management that describes at least half a dozen additional risk management elements that are there
that are not in conventional banking.

In terms of ‘experienced conventional banker’, like Yusuf said, even if you have one or two years of
Islamic finance experience that’s great but
but in terms of an experienced conventional baker, most banks
will take somebody who has limited banking experience but specific Islamic finance even if it is limited
over somebody who has pure conventional banking experience so just a little bit of Islamic finance
background, goes a very, very long way.

Yusuf:: Yeah, there’s a huge, huge difference even if, as Atif said, you’ve got a short amount of Islamic
banking experience, it would override conventional banking experience. You’ve asked about risk
management in general and you’ve asked about whether the sector’s developed and the answer is ‘No’ in
the Islamic banking context it’s not developed which may be to your advantage because
bec if you’ve got
previous experience in risk management you’d find the way that things function are very much the same,
but does that mean it’s going to stay that way, ‘No’ because obviously risk management in the Islamic
perspective as Atif touched upon is very different which would be probably good for someone like
yourself, you could probably come in this industry if you supplement your previous background with
product specific knowledge and training and to understand the differences in the products then
th you’d
have something new to bring to the table. And there isn’t actually much information out there when it
comes to actual risk management with an Islamic perspective but I am aware Ethica have specific
modules that address this so this would be good tot chase up.

Atif: Okay. We’re going to go to our last question now.

Attendee: When will you tell us who the lucky people are?

Atif: I will explain that to you

ou right now, before I do that I would like to invite all of you to our free 7 day
course, all you have
ave to do is go to www.EthicaInstitute.com and right there on the yellow box on the
homepage is our 7 day free course. This free course gives you a free sample of our training modules, you
get article downloads.

You also get to watch the ‘Why Islamic finance?’ video which has been very popular
popular. So you learn the
basics but you also learn a lot about spe
specific products. We’ve chosen
n Ijarah, the Islamic lease as our
product highlighted in this 7 day free course because renting is something familiar to all of us and to
understand how it works we have an introductory module on Ijarah as well as a more advance
advanced module
on how to calculate an Ijarah and how to structure it. So insha’Allah that’s free at EthicaInstit
EthicaInstitue.com.

Soo here we go, all attendees will get our downloadable version of our video ‘Why Islamic finance?’ 3
lucky attendees will get 1-on-1
1 career counseling
counseling with an Islamic finance expert and this is how to do it,
the first 3 people who send us an email with the subject line ‘Career Counseling’,
ling’, (we accept spelling
mistakes) should be sent to info at ethicainstitute.com. First
irst people to send it, you can send it right now,

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and the first 3 people will get a free 1-on-1
1 career counseling which is normally the reserve only of our
Ethica’s CIFE graduates.

We also have 10 lucky attendees who will get a special offer on our CIFE training and certification
program,
rogram, which is a discount and all you have to do is send an email to info at ethicainstitute.com and in
the subject line just right ‘I’m interested in the special discounted price’ so there you go, thank you every
one for your time and insha’Allah we’ll have our next webinar in about a month’s time. In the mean time
you can contact us in Dubai at +9714 305 0782 or in North America at +858 222 1725.

Our next webinar insha’Allah will be more technical and more product focused. Perhaps we will invite
Yusuf back and it was really a pleasure to have you, we have to give a special thanks to Yusuf as he
literally arrived from the airport straight to our offices here
here, so thank you Yusuf for giving us your time.

Yusuf: It was a pleasure being here and I do hope

h to take part again if you’ll have me.

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