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Islamic Finance Daily Brief — Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Assalamu alaikum! Today's Islamic finance stories — with a USA focus.

Today's 5 stories

🇺🇸 1. New York's Wafra named World's Best Islamic Fund Manager — three years running

Wafra Inc., the $30 billion New York City–based alternative asset manager, announced this week that its Global Sukuk Team has been named World's Best Islamic Fund Manager at the 2026 Euromoney Islamic Finance Awards. The award, decided by a panel of Euromoney journalists and researchers, marks the third consecutive year Wafra has taken the title, recognizing its data-driven Global Sukuk Strategy for institutional partners.

What to learn: A sukuk fund buys sukuk certificates from many issuers and manages them as one portfolio, the way a bond fund works. Industry awards like Euromoney’s are judged by journalists and researchers on performance and strategy, not by investors. A New York firm winning three years running matters because conventional asset managers now compete directly in Islamic products. The alternative for investors is smaller specialist Islamic funds. The impact: more competition, better professional standards, and proof that halal mandates can sit inside mainstream Wall Street firms.

🔗 Source: PR Newswire

🇺🇸 2. StepStone and ASB Capital launch Shariah-compliant private credit fund for US companies

Nasdaq-listed StepStone has teamed up with Dubai-based asset manager ASB Capital to launch the ASB StepStone Private Financing Fund, a Shariah-compliant lending fund focused on senior secured financing to US middle-market companies. Structured as an open-ended, perpetual vehicle, the fund pairs ASB Capital's regional reach with StepStone's roughly $245 billion global private-markets platform, responding to rising demand for halal, income-generating alternatives.

What to learn: Private credit means loans made by funds instead of banks, usually to mid-sized companies. To keep it halal, the fund structures deals as Shariah-compliant contracts rather than interest-bearing loans. “Senior secured” means the fund is first in line to be repaid if the borrower fails. An open-ended, perpetual vehicle lets investors put money in or take it out on an ongoing basis instead of locking it up for a fixed term. The alternative for halal income has been sukuk or dividend stocks. The impact: a new asset class opens to Shariah-compliant portfolios.

🔗 Source: Alternative Credit Investor

🇺🇸 3. Halal screening platform RihalQ partners with US adviser Asal Invest

RihalQ, a halal equity-screening platform, has partnered with US-based investment adviser Asal Invest to bring Islamic equity screening and data to investors across the United States, according to Islamic Finance News' September investor review. The move plugs Shariah-compliance screening directly into the tools American investors use to research stocks.

What to learn: Shariah screening checks two things: what a company does (no alcohol, gambling, conventional banking, or weapons) and its finances (debt and interest income below set thresholds). Screening platforms pull company financials and run these tests automatically, flagging stocks as compliant or not. Without them, each investor would have to read financial statements and compute ratios by hand. The alternative is buying a pre-screened fund and skipping the checks. The impact: everyday investors can verify compliance themselves instead of taking it on trust.

🔗 Source: IFN Investor

🇬🇧 4. Gulf Islamic Investments buys majority stake in London House Exchange

Gulf Islamic Investments (GII), a Shariah-compliant alternatives group managing more than $3 billion, has acquired a majority stake in London House Exchange (LHX) from Nasdaq-listed Better Home & Finance, following UK Financial Conduct Authority approval. LHX — the world's first regulated exchange for fractional UK property investments — is GII's second UK investment after halal home-finance provider Offa; GII plans to expand the platform into Shariah-compliant private credit and regulated tokenisation.

What to learn: Fractional ownership means many investors each own a slice of one property and share the rental income. An exchange for these slices lets investors buy and sell them the way stocks trade, instead of being locked in. Tokenisation records each slice as a digital token, which makes ownership easier to track and transfer. The alternative is a property fund or direct ownership of a whole building. The impact: smaller investors get access to property returns, and the FCA approval shows regulators are comfortable with the model.

🔗 Source: Alternative Credit Investor

🇪🇺 5. Geneva hosts Ethical Finance Forum as Europe's Islamic finance supply gap takes centre stage

The Ethical Finance Forum 2026 convened in Geneva this week (October 5–6), opening with a plenary on a striking two-sided reality: demand for Shariah-compliant finance in Europe keeps growing — driven by Muslim diaspora communities — but the supply of products and institutions remains embryonic, with the UK and Germany the notable exceptions. Speakers included KT Bank AG (the only full-service participation bank on the European continent) and Saturna Capital, manager of the long-running Amana halal funds, with sessions on mobilising diaspora savings and social finance for the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

What to learn: A participation bank is the term used in Turkey and parts of Europe for a fully Shariah-compliant bank; KT Bank in Germany is the only one operating across continental Europe. Demand for halal finance in Europe comes mostly from Muslim diaspora communities whose savings sit in conventional banks. Supply lags because licensing a new bank is slow and expensive, and most providers cluster in the UK. The alternatives for European Muslims are UK-based providers or conventional products. Forums like this one exist to close that gap by connecting capital, regulators, and institutions.

🔗 Source: Financial Afrik

Learn Islamic Finance: Sukuk

A conventional bond is a loan: you lend money and collect interest, which is riba and therefore not halal. A sukuk is Islamic finance's answer: instead of lending money and collecting interest, investors own a share of a real asset or project — say, an airport terminal or a portfolio of buildings — and earn returns from the profit that asset generates.

How it works: A company or government that needs funding transfers assets into a special-purpose vehicle, which sells sukuk certificates to investors. Investors receive periodic payments from the asset's earnings (not fixed interest), and get their principal back when the sukuk matures — typically through the asset being sold back at a pre-agreed price.

A real-world example: Yesterday's story #1 mentioned Wafra's award-winning Global Sukuk Strategy — a professional fund that buys sukuk from issuers around the world. And the UK itself has issued sovereign sukuk, letting the British government raise money in a fully Shariah-compliant way. So when you hear "Islamic bonds," A sukuk is best understood as an ownership certificate tied to real assets.

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