European Islamic Investment Bank (EIIB), the first independent, Shariah-compliant Islamic investment bank to be authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the UK, announced the completion of two deals.
The first agreement, a structured trade finance facility, was signed by EIIB and CCH International  (CCH) and its subsidiaries for a sterling denominated revolving supplier credit financing facility.  Proceeds of the facility will be used to finance a UK based supplier of steel products according to the principles of Shariah.  The facility has been structured as a scalable financing solution and is envisaged to meet the short and medium term requirements of both the UK-based supplier and CCH. 
The second agreement was signed with the Islamic Bank of Britain plc (IBB) and is for a committed standby facility.

“We need the players to congregate here – bankers; accounting, taxation and law specialists as well as Syariah scholars. We also need to bring in the talents as well,” he said. He is “very bullish” about the Islamic wealth management business where he believes Citigroup can make the difference.  
He sees enormous liquidity in the Muslim world, which is looking for a variety of Islamic structured products, because of the high oil prices.  
“We offer clients innovative products which provide them with exposure to different asset classes – commodities, equities, Islamic fixed income and real estate, among others. We want to make Asia a centre for Islamic wealth management – to design products here and offer it globally,” he said.  
Haneef believes there is still space to grow especially in the wealth management business. 
“There are still not that many products in the market and that is where we want to grow. We hope to have a range of consumer and wealth management products in local and foreign currency by year-end,” he said, adding that Citigroup had poured in a substantial amount of investments to develop the Islamic banking business especially in ensuring that system enhancements were completed.  
Haneef said Citigroup's decision to have a dedicated Islamic banking team in Malaysia was to ensure a more sustained business growth in Asia.  
“It will be a more structured approach in Asia now. With the Kuala Lumpur office as the regional centre for Asia, we will be developing the business in Brunei, Indonesia and elsewhere in the region.  
“At the moment it is still small but we are hoping to increase the business over time. Now that we have a dedicated team, we can move more aggressively to grow the business,” he said.  
He sees a lot of opportunities for Citigroup to grow its market share in the domestic Islamic banking industry as total Islamic banking assets versus total banking assets only stood at 12% after 30 years.  
“At 12%, there is still so much room to grow. It would be more difficult for us if Malaysia's total Islamic banking assets had hit 30% or 40%. That is why more banks are moving into Islamic banking. All of them are looking for areas of growth and because this is a new emerging industry there is definitely more opportunities for growth,” he said.