Islamic Business and Finance Awards 2005 to be announced at the 2nd Islamic Retail Banking Conference

Results of the awards will be announced at a special Gala Dinner on November 14 at the Grand Hyatt in Dubai. Conference director, Mohaned Abdullah, said: "

"The announcement of the award winners aims at complementing the conference's objective of establishing a constructive discourse that addresses significant issues and identifies major opportunities."

Speaking about the conference, Mr. Abdullah, said: " The two-day event will feature nine sessions and will be attended by prominent personalities in the field of Islamic and traditional banking including H.E. Dr. Mohamed Khalfan bin Khirbash, Minister of State for Finance and Industry; Sheikh Saleh Kamel, Chairman, Dallah Baraka Group; and Prof Rifaat Abdel Karim, Secretary General, Islamic Financial Services Board, among others."

He added:" A session on marketing, branding and communication will be held on the second day of the conference. The session will be open for marketing managers to take part in discussing the rapid growth of Islamic services, effective marketing, as well as branding and communications strategies. Marketing practitioners can register on the website to attend the session at no cost. "

As for the programme of the conference, five sessions will take place during the first day of the conference on November 14. The inaugural session will discuss "The Changing Face of Retail Banking - Challenges for Islamic Banking", followed by the first session under the title "The GCC Regional Overview: Setting the Scene"; second session titled "A Focus on the Malaysian Islamic Retail Banking Experience"; third session titled "The UK & Europe: Islamic retail finance in non-Muslim countries, the future seems bright"; and the fourth session on "USA and Canada". The first day will be concluded by a featured focus on "Takaful, Relationship between Takaful and financing: Unleashing the potential".

The fifth session on the second and final day of the conference will debate "Emerging Market Opportunities for Islamic Finance", while the sixth session will discuss "Islamic Banking Technology at the Fore: Does Technology Yield Competitive Advantage. The seventh session will discuss "Assessing the future of Islamic Credit Cards, Developing the Market"; the eighth session will debate marketing, branding and communication; the ninth session will feature media discussion on "Assessing the impact of Media in Shaping Public Attitudes".