Islamic banks in Yemen win their customers’ confidence [Archives:2004/764/Business & Economy]

Mahyoub Al-Kamaly
The Islamic banks in Yemen are capturing confidence of their customers by a rate amounting to 56% in comparison with the trust granted t commercial and specialized banks. That has enabled Islamic banks to occupy an advanced position and status in banking and investment activities in Yemen. It is especially so because they are managed by commercial and financial firms entertaining high reputation in economic and trading activity in the country of Yemen.

Statements issued recently report that the share of Islamic banks out of the total unified budget of commercial banks has raised by 18% compared to 8% in 1998 and by 25% last year with a difference of $% for the commercial banks that amounted to 21% in 2003.
The statements also point out that confidence of the clients dealing with the Islamic banks and their banking activities has contributed to increase the volume of their annual budget last year by an amount of 55% against 21% for the commercial banking sector, as the budget of the Islamic banks has reached to about YR 138 billion at he end of 2003.
The Tadhamun Islamic Bank has occupied the second position among other banks with regard to the total budget and the Saba Islamic Bank the eighth position and the Yemeni Islamic Bank scored the 11th position.
Bank data indicate that the volume of deposits has seen a rise in Islamic banks that were until 1998 only YR 11 billion and rose to YR 73 billion in 2002 and in 2003 reached at YR 116 billion.
These indicators emphasize that the Islamic banks in Yemen are enjoying confidence of depositors who find their banking activities as depending and based on the Islamic law and spare the depositors the suspicion of prohibited interests. Therefore the proportion of deposit in Islamic banks in Yemen has jumped to 24.5% out of the total amount of deposits in the Yemeni banking establishment.
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