ISLAMIC BANKING

First ON-Rule for Islamic banking

ONR 142001-1 Islamic banking - Requirements for financial products and financial services

Upon our initiative, the ON-Rule ONR 142001-1 for Islamic banking was developed at Austrian Standards Institute. This first Europe-wide normative paper for Islamic financial services (IF) was published May 1st, 2010 and presented to the public at the Concordia Presseclub on May, 6th.

The successful guidelines for halal food according to Islamic dietary regulations resulted from the workshop 1143 ' Halal products and services', which we jointly launched in collaboration with the Austrian Standards Institute. The ON-Rule for Islamic banking determines the basic principles and requirements for financial products and financial services that not only comply with the applicable law but also the Islamic legal system, that is the Koran and the Sunnah.

Günther Ahmed Rusnak, head of IIDZ-Austria and chairman of the responsible committee.

The sector for Islamic financial services comprises financial institutions as well as the insurance sector. With a worldwide population of 1.3 billion Muslims, the sector generated several hundreds of billions of Euros in the last few years.

ONR 142001 - 1 aims to give Muslims the security that these kind of certified products comply with Islamic principles. Furthermore, opening up a future market that has a yearly growth rate of 10 to 15 per cent would be of benefit to both the Austrian and European economies.

ONR 142001-2 Islamic banking - Islamic assurance products and assurance services

In Islam there are different principles of law leading to a distinction between conventional insurance systems and Islamic insurance systems (Takaful). This ONR defines the requirements for insurance products and insurance services to be used in Islamic insurance to ensure, that the configuration of such products and services complies with Islamic principles while at the same time not coming into conflict with European regulations.