Vatican promotes Islamic finance in face of global crisis

Osservatore Romano    Vatican says Western banks should look at rules of Islamic finance to restore confidence amongst clients.   ROME - The Vatican said banks should look at the rules of Islamic finance to restore confidence amongst their clients during the current global economic crisis. “The ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spiritwhich should mark every financial service,” the Vatican’s official newspaper Osservatore Romano said in an article in its latest issue. The article argues that “Western banks could use tools such as the Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, as collateral”. Sukuk may be used to fund the “‘car industry or the next Olympic Games in London,” it said. The article also said that profit share, gained from sukuk, may be an alternative to the interest, underlining that the sukuk system could help automotive sector and support investments in infrastructure area. Using the Islamic sukuk system, money would be invested in concrete projects and profit share - instead of interest earned - is distributed to clients. The Osservatore’s editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said that “the great religions have always had a common attention to the human dimension of the economy,” Corriere della Sera reported.  http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=30836