HSBC seeks big growth, sukuk pickup in 2010

HSBC expects double-digit revenue growth this year in its Amanah Islamic banking division and more sukuk mandates than in 2009, Razi Fakih, deputy chief executive of Amanah told Reuters.
HSBC expects to have more than the 15 mandates it had in 2009 for sukuk, or Islamic bond issues, Fakih said at the Reuters Islamic Banking and Finance Summit.
"We're confident we can do better in 2010," Fakih said. "We see a very bright 2010 in the sukuk space."
New issuance will come more from the Middle East and Asia than from the West, he told Reuters with some issues already lined up for the first quarter of the year.
Fakih's bullish outlook for HSBC-mandated issuance runs counter to consensus expectations for global sukuk volumes to weaken in 2010, in part due to a weakening in market sentiment in the wake of the Dubai debt crisis.
Global sukuk issuance totaled $19 billion last year, of which the United Arab Emirates accounted for a fifth, according to Thomson Reuters data.
By comparison, global emerging market issuance totaled close to $200 billion last year, according to Commerzbank, and is likely to match that this year as investors look for more conventional, higher-yielding assets again.
Fakih told Reuters the Islamic financial sector remained poised to outgrow conventional finance in revenue terms after both sectors suffered under the global crisis.