Three Banks set to provide Islamic banking services in Algeria

Three Algeria-based banks are bracing to open special desks tasked with providing Islamic Banking services for the benefit of their customers bringing to seven the number of such financial bodies set to operate in the Algerian financial arena in the near future.

Various economic operators and business dealers called for the setting up by the relevant authorities of a legal framework to facilitate the smooth integration of these Islamic services into the national financial market at the earliest possible time.

In this respect, the Secretary General of the “El Baraka” Bank, Nasser Haidar, said that the specificities of Islamic Banking operations were widely accepted but they weren’t provided for by the Algerian law.

He pointed out that the development of this type of banking service required a special regulatory and legal framework in order to make it expand by leaps and bound across the national financial spectrum.

For University Professor, Said Kassab, it’s quite unfeasible to allow the Islamic Banking sector to grow in the traditional working environment because of the prerequisite to amend the current exchange, monetary, trade and tax laws so as to accommodate efficiently and without any snag, this new type of banking services across the national territory.