the benefit of all stakeholders. two important aspects of islamic banking that i would like to safely highlight today are that islamic finance encourages profit and risk sharing, thus involving greater participation of both banker and customer, a notion that could easily be adopted by conventional banking and of course the proscription of usery or riba in islamic finance. in fact usery has also been condemned in the vedic texts as well as in religious texts from budhism, judaism, christianity and islam. at times many ancient nations, such as, china, greece and rome, have outlawed loans with interest. the pivotal change took place in 1545 in the english - speaking world through “ an act against userie ” promulgated during the reign of king henry the viii. while others followed suit, the muslims kept to their traditions alongside conventional banking. allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to share with you our views on islamic banking in mauritius. one participant dr manfred had a comment yesterday on how we are promoting islamic banking when muslims are modestly represented here. first of all, we should be bis central bankers ’ speeches clear in our mind that ib is not reserved for muslims only. there is no such tag on ib products either in mauritius or in any other part of the world. the products are designed according to defined principles and are vetted by learned scholars. if you like the product, you adopt it. mr jaufeerally, our first speaker yesterday, referred to a very basic example, that of chicken briani. all of you may know that briani is a very popular dish for local muslims. i would go further by saying that as muslims ( again i am not a scholar here ) there can never be any harm to share a halal product. the reverse may not be permissible. our objective at the central bank is to offer an alternate mode of finance to local stakeholders and also to enlarge our offerings in the offshore financial domain. the tendency to focus on profits alone may not always be socially desirable. of course, we do not dispute the fact that banks should be profitable, but in these crisis times where customers ’ rights are being propelled in the forefront, banks should also consider to share the burden of customers. islamic finance in africa modern islamic finance was born in egypt when a commercial bank opened its cairo branch to process the financial transactions relating to the construction of the suez canal in 1890 and the notion of interest or riba was criticized by the then islamic scholars. consequently, the muslim world

taking part in the important discussion on introducing effective macro - prudential surveillance. in many respects, global financial markets call for close political coordination on a global scale. insofar as differences in our respective financial systems mean that the united states and europe pursue different paths in regulation, it is nevertheless vital to monitor experiences abroad closely. for example, we at the bundesbank are monitoring with great interest the approach taken with the dodd frank act and its ensuing implementation. i am very happy that the bundesbank has maintained a representative office here in new york for nearly 25 years and also maintains an active trading desk here. there is certainly no risk of our representative running out of work in reporting on and informing us of the latest developments in your bis central bankers ’ speeches country, while, at the same time, explaining and conveying german and european perspectives. fortunately, the rough winds of the cold war that made the airlift necessary are gone. but, perhaps in a different way, we always need an airlift. in sculpture, the figure of the “ caller ” can be found in many variations. in bremen and in berlin close to the brandenburg gate, there is one very impressive statue of this kind. in new york too, there are great monuments evoking this theme − at battery park, for example, where a mariner is calling in the storm. for a moment, let ’ s just imagine that both are calling out to each other. bis central bankers ’ speeches