A Kuwaiti firm and a major Saudi Arabian group agreed to merge their banking and investment units to create one of the area's largest Islamic banking entities.
Islamic rules ban banks from charging interest.
The deal will create the first Islamic financial services group to offer a full range of investment and retail banking services to clients across the Middle East and Africa. Regional giants Rajhi of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Finance House are key Islamic banking forces with large domestic retail networks. DBG will own 35 percent of the new entity. TII asked the two bourses to resume trading in its shares. It has a capital of 17.68 million dinars with 176.8 million shares issued.