A group of 10 students in total, among them three students from the main RIT campus in New York, are learning about Islamic Finance for the first time in RIT Dubai.
Dr. Mejda Bahlous-Boldi an associate professor of Finance explains that the Islamic banking and Finance industry has witnessed double digit growth since the financial crisis and is now considered a viable alternative to conventional finance even in western countries. With the Islamic finance industry becoming a global industry, universities and colleges need to work on providing the human capital and product innovation needed to sustain the growth of the Islamic Banking and Finance Industry.
Islamic Banking deemed as interest free banking based on profit and loss sharing principles, promotes a more equitable, just and fair economic system that aims to benefit the society as a whole.
According to a recent report of The Banker 2015 “the Islamic finance industry’s strong, if not stellar, growth continued. The global industry’s compound annual asset growth (CAGR) between 2007 and the end of 2014 sits at an impressive 12.68%. This performance has largely been driven by the dominant markets of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) and Malaysia. For its part, the GCC registered a CAGR of 17.49% over this period, while in Asia this number hit 10.55%, followed by sub-Saharan Africa coming in at 10.46%.”