London: City in fresh bid to become Sharia finance hub

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9922440/City-in-fresh-bid-to-become-Sharia-finance-hub.html

London:
City in fresh bid to become Sharia finance hub
London is set to go head-to-head with the world's leading Islamic finance centres as the government pushes to make the UK a leading centre for Sharia-compliant lending.
Mosque in the UAE
Standard & Poor's has forecast that the market for Sharia-compliant products will double to $3 trillion by 2015, while consultancy Oliver Wyman estimated that 150 new Islamic financial institutions will be needed globally by 2020 to satisfy demand. Photo: Rex Features

By Denise Roland, and agencies

2:37PM GMT 11 Mar 2013

The government has announced plans to boost Britain's profile as a hub for Islamic banking, in the hope of benefiting from the rapidly growing market for Sharia-compliant financial products.

A task force led by Greg Clark, Secretary to the Treasury, and Baroness Warsi, Foreign Office minister, has been handed the remit of "showcasing the UK as the preferred choice for the Muslim world to invest in and do business in".

It will face its first test in October, when hundreds of key Islamic decision makers gather in London for the first World Islamic Economic Forum meeting to be held in the western world.