Part 1/5 - Islamic Mortgage Financing in the Non-Islamic World

From UFANA Conference 2010, Toronto, Canada - March 30 & 31, 2010

Lorne Cutler
Founder, LAC & Associates Consulting


Stephen Ranzini
President & Chairman, University Bank, USA

Stephen Lange Ranzini is President of University Bank of Ann Arbor, Michigan which has $8.2 billion in assets under management. He played the leading role in the acquisition of the Bank in 1988 when he became the nation's youngest bank holding company President at age 23, a position he has held since. Among his accomplishments at University Bank, he is the Founder, Chairman, President & CEO of University Islamic Financial, the first banking subsidiary of a U.S. bank run entirely on Sharia principles. University Bank was selected as "Community Bankers of the Year" in 2006 by U.S. Banker magazine and as "Community Bankers of the Year" in 2009 by the American Bankers Association. A magna cum laude graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Stephen graduated from Yale on scholarship and has served as both the President of the Yale Alumni Association of Michigan and as a Delegate to the Yale Assembly.


Omar Kalair
President and CEO, UM Financial, Canada

In 2004, Omar Kalair founded UM Financial, which today is Canada's premier Islamic Financial Institution as well as a member of IFSB and AAOIFI. UM operates UM Financial, UM Investment, UM Advisory (Sukuks) and a Islamic Mastercard. UM Financial is also working towards Islamic ETF, Takaful insurance, Canadian bank license and more. UM Financial is a founding member of Usury Free Association of North America. In 2005, Omar Kalair was admitted to a PhD program in Islamic Economics & Finance. In 2007, Mr. Kalair was recognized among CIC's top twenty Muslim business leaders at the Canadian parliament. In 2009, Omar Kalair was presented by World Finance with the annual "Islamic Finance Business Leadership Award - North America". He was also awarded Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 by the Canadian Islamic Chamber of Commerce. In founding UM Financial, Mr. Kalair has demonstrated an exceptional ability to see and lead the Canadian Islamic Finance industry from a technical, marketing, financial and regulatory angle.


Thomas Gainor
SVP, General Counsel, Guidance Residential, USA

Tom Gainor was a member of the venture team that created Guidance Residential, LLC and since its inception has served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Company where he is responsible for a full spectrum of legal matters including product development. Guidance is a premier provider of Sharia compliant home financing in the United States. Mr. Gainor has over 25 years of diversified professional experience. Prior to joining Guidance, Tom served as Managing Partner in the London office of The International Investor ("TII"), a prominent Islamic investment bank. Prior to his time in London, he spent four years in TII's Kuwait based corporate headquarters where he founded that company's fund administration unit, chaired its product development committee and had primary responsibility for its wholesale distribution strategy. He also worked in a strategic tax planning position with FPL Group, Inc. (a Fortune 100 Company) and spent ten years in public accounting with Touche Ross & Co. Mr. Gainor is a licensed attorney, Certified Public Accountant, Certified Management Accountant and possesses both a Series 7 and 24 securities license. He earned his B.A. in Accounting from the University of Rhode Island and both his J.D. and LL.M. in Taxation from The University of Miami School of Law.


Guy David
Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson, LLP, Canada

Guy David is a lawyer and partner in the Corporate Finance, Securities and Public M&A Group in the Ottawa office of Gowlings and leads the firm's Islamic Finance practice. He is also the Ottawa office leader of Gowlings National Infrastructure Team. His practice includes corporate finance and securities, project finance, financial regulatory law and international finance. He holds law degrees in both the civil law and common law legal systems.
Mr. David has participated in a number of Islamic finance transactions, including in-bound investments into Canada, Sharia-compliant loans by Canadian financial institutions and to entities in the GCC and development of retail financial products for Canadian financial institutions. Guy David has led the Gowlings' team advising GCC investors on a Sharia- compliant structure for a major resort acquisition in British Columbia. He has advised the Canadian federal government's Islamic Financial Services Working Group and led the Gowlings' team that completed the Islamic Housing Finance study recently published by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. CMHC. Guy David has spoken extensively on Islamic finance in Canada and internationally and has also published articles on the subject.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• islamic
• finance
• usury-free
• UFANA

[nickfl1980]

People need to understand by learning from history that we (the Christian society) also had (not anymore) a usury free (debt free) money system backed by gold. The jewish had it too but only for jewish people, interest/usery were only for outsiders. In the Islam faith it's still exist and it's still working fine and that's why the criminal banksters of today demonize the them against us. The truth is, the banksters hate useryfree money backed by gold.

[dryflyguyok]

I am very keen on removing the banking ogliarch of the zionist/rothchild controlled world economy. Compound interest is the death of all things,mathematically speaking...it eventually swallows all!! Cheers for posting this..Wake up people. Islam is NOT the enemy...Preasent day Federal Reserve fiat banking/fractional reserve system is a farce in so many ways.Peace.Inshallah1

[SZS0001]

@possession2 that is not possible.

[possession2]

So let me get this straight, Muslims don't have to pay interest on a morgage now? Well if so find it utterly disgusting and totally discriminatory.