The road to Basel II

The new Basel capital Accord is creating headaches for banks around the globe. However, Middle Eastern institutions that offer Islamic banking products have even more hurdles to jump. By John Ferry

Europe is in the final stages of preparing for Basel II, set for implementation in January next year, while US regulators are still deciding how they want to apply the Accord to their financial institutions. For banks in the Middle East, however, particularly those engaged in Islamic finance, applying Basel II is a different story altogether.

The majority of Middle Eastern banks engage in both conventional and Islamic banking, so applying Basel II requires not only compliance with the core