Morocco explains difficulty to grant permission to Islamic banks installation

The difficulty to grant permission to Islamic banks to open branches in Morocco resides in the inadequacy of these banks' operations with the national banking law, the Moroccan economy and finance minister said.

Fathallah Oualalou told the Chamber of Advisors (upper house of the parliament) that these operations deal mainly with the depositing and distribution of loans in addition to other operations which are not stipulated in the Moroccan banking law, including profit-sharing and participation.

He noted that a study conducted recently on the role of Islamic banks since 1993 showed that these institutions did not succeed in putting an end to monopoly and in limiting the phenomenon of poverty in the countries where they are installed.

The proliferation of banks does not necessarily means the diversification of economic activity, he added.