Eleanor De Rosmorduc and Jean-Nicholas Durand question why success in the retail market is necessary for Islamic finance to reach a viable scale in Europe.
One of the sensible things that emerged from the recent financial crisis is a more realistic approach to estimating the growth rate of Islamic finance. Indeed, the 2012 Global Islamic Finance Report foregoes the temptation to make any global predictions at all.
Clearly, Islamic finance was not impervious to the financial crisis in Europe, nor is every born Muslim a client for Islamic finance. This is not to say that the industry is destined to fail in Europe: on the contrary. The financial crisis has led people to reassess the role of moral values in finance and this has had a beneficial impact on attitudes towards the Islamic finance sector.
