Islamic alternative investments in Western Europe

Abstract

Islamic finance in the world of conventional finance is shown as specified type of finance dedicated to certain group of customers – Muslims. That is one of the reasons why the level of information covered the field is so limited. Overall goal of the article is to present the specified part of the Islamic finance – alternative investment, which are both in conventional and Islamic form, the newest parts of the whole area of investment. Going through eight groups of alternative investments with the introduction about the characteristics of the Islamic (Sharia’ah based) products, foundations with empirical combination of examples of Islamic investments are presented.Data for the research was collected in the HSBC Amanah and Kuwait Finance House. Its’ character is not quantitative, the method of data collection is interview with representatives of the institutions and analysis of internal financial documents. Research resulted in presentation of various types of the investments, which are similar to the alternative investments dedicated to conventional customers. In addition, study arose to fact that Muslim investors had almost the same number of investment products available as conventional once. The situation developed the conclusion that Islamic investments are the same attractive to both conventional and Muslim investors. What is more, the products are available in more and more financial institutions. Examples used for the research are both applicable for conventional customers, but for Muslim once only Kuwait Finance House is fully Sharia’ah complaint institution.