Buyers look at gold jewellery in a shop at the Gold Souq in Dubai. Reuters

The current COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences have shed light on new market services that leverage the digital transformation shaping new economic models; gold, in particular, forms the subject of Deloitte’s latest report.

Deloitte’s Islamic Finance Knowledge Center in the Middle East, in collaboration with the International Shariah Research Academy (ISRA), launched a new industry report, “The Global Gold Investment Markets Traits for Shariah-based investment solutions”. The report assesses the current state of gold investment markets in core Islamic financial markets and analyzes the key economic and business drivers of gold trade and investment, in particular the Shariah-compliant product offerings, as well as examines the opportunities that gold as a commodity offers for Shariah-based innovative investment solutions.

“Deloitte Middle East leverages its global capabilities and expertise to offer customized Islamic financial services in a dynamic and changing landscape. For over ten years, our Islamic finance insights series have provided practical market insights and knowledge that can be turned into business opportunities for our clients,” said Khaled Hilmi, Financial Services Industry Leader, Deloitte Middle East.

Additionally, the Deloitte report examines the Shariah-compliant gold market in seven countries, and the regulatory and policy environment, products offered by various market institutions, and the regional differences in these markets.

The report also aims to present a high-level approach to align Maqasid al-Shariah with the SDGs and ESG and looks at how IIFSs can leverage technology to design products that will diversify their product offerings and boost the social value to markets and societies. Finally, the analysis of gold investment markets and the need for new Shariah-based investment products has revealed a number of key points for industry leaders to take forward.

“ISRA has always placed great emphasis in finding a practical solution based on Shariah guidance for the Islamic financial market globally. In the current global condition, the emphasis should be given to realizing the objective of Shariah (Maqasid al-Shariah) in all our products and services that we offer to our stakeholder,” said Professor Mohamad Akram Laldin, Executive Director, International Shariah Research Academy for Islamic Finance.

“Our cross-sector collaboration approach to study the Shariah-compliant innovation in global gold markets yielded excellent and insightful practice and policy development in countries and markets we examined. Key to this are the prospects of developing financing and investment products along the Global Gold Value Chain. For instance, our study reveals that investors and financial institutions alike will benefit from the development of Gold Sukuk market for smaller investors in both upstream and downstream gold investment,” explains Dr Hatim El Tahir, Director of the Deloitte Islamic Finance Knowledge Center.

“The UAE market being one of the leading gold hubs in world, and the faith Noor Capital has in the importance of digitization in the local and regional Markets, made us develop a cutting-edge electronic trading platform to meet the growing demand on Shariah Gold investments. Our technology completes the cycle between the gold refiners through the brokers/gold dealers to the end users,” said Abdullah Al Swaidi, Executive Strategy Director, Noor Capital.

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