Standard Chartered is making a foray into the Takaful market, announcing today that it's offering a range of such products to its customers through a partnership with SALAMA-Islamic Arab Insurance Company: "This is an exciting opportunity for Standard Chartered to broaden the core range of products we provide to our customers which allows us to participate in the future growth of the country's Takaful market," said Afaq Khan, the CEO of Standard Chartered Saadiq, the bank's Shariah-compliant banking window. "The introduction of this product is part of the larger consumer banking commitment that Standard Chartered has to our customers to offer them value-based and solid Shariah compliant financial solutions."

Standard Chartered and HSBC have of late been pretty aggressive about their Islamic finance offerings, SC with its Saadiq products and HSBC with its Amanah products. Clearly, they both sense there's a big untapped market out there.

National Bonds, the UAE's raffle-cum-savings-scheme, is announcing weekly winners of Dh1m each from here on out. It had been doing a monthly draw.

The company, a Dubai-government-owned enterprise, takes the money people invest and puts most of it in safe places. A good portion of its funds, however, go towards more-risky ventures that stand to turn a profit - and potentially a big one. The bonds last year returned investors over 7 per cent, a great number in this less-than-stellar economy. The year before, they delivered over 6 per cent. In all likelihood, the increased frequency of draws represents an effort to get more people to invest. In any case, it's a type of Shariah-compliant investment that's been growing quickly in popularity these past few years, as Bradley Hope reported recently in The National.