Excerpt:
The fast growing, Sharia-compliant Islamic finance industry has the potential to promote financial stability because of its risk-sharing and asset-backed features, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said Wednesday.
"Islamic finance has, in principle, the potential to promote financial stability because its risk-sharing feature reduces leverage and its financing is asset-backed and thus fully collateralized," Lagarde told an Islamic finance conference in Kuwait.
Islamic banks also offer profit-sharing and loss-bearing accounts that can help mitigate losses and contagion in the event of banking sector distress, she said.