Road opened to South Africa

The Dallah Albaraka Group, founded by Sheikh Saleh Kamel in 1969, is presently spreading into the South African market. The group invests in over 85 companies and employs around 50,000 individuals. Albaraka has in its operations set up a system of financial institutions. Albaraka started a Durban joint venture in 1990, and since then has expanded to Cape Town and to Pretoria. In South Africa, an Albaraka bank executive explains, the Islamic bank is able to act in ways such firms cannot operate elsewhere. One illustration of this fact is that there are no deposit guarantees in South Africa. The lack of such guarantees, required in Britain, are reflective of the Islamic principle of risk sharing.