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Elaf Bank joins the BFX's Bait Al Bursa platform

Manama, Bahrain - 7 December, 2011: The Bahrain Financial Exchange ( BFX ), the first multi-asset exchange in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, is pleased to announce that Elaf Bank , a wholesale Islamic bank licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain , has become a registered user of Bait Al Bursa, the Islamic finance division of the BFX .

Bait Al Bursa, an innovative and comprehensive platform, will complement the broad scope of Elaf Bank 's core business offerings. Elaf Bank provides a wide range of financial services involving fund-raising advisory, asset management, mergers and acquisitions, treasury, liquidity management, foreign exchange, investment, structured products and derivatives. The initial stage of the partnership will focus on the BFX 's Murabaha liquidity management platform, e-Tayseer.

Dr. Jamil El Jaroudi, Chief Executive Officer, commenting on the partnership: "Joining BFX 's Bait Al Bursa division brings a wide range of opportunities to Elaf Bank 's stakeholders. Of our immediate aims is to streamline all our Murabaha transactions through the Exchange's liquidity engine e-Tayseer. In parallel, we will be working closely with the BFX Bait Al Bursa division in shaping up the next stage of Islamic products that the Exchange is planning to launch and to work jointly on developing the secondary market for better liquidity management in Islamic banks."

Mr. Arshad Khan, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the BFX and the BFX Clearing and Depository Corporation (BCDC), said: "This partnership demonstrates the diversity of the BFX 's products portfolio that provides opportunities to the widest range of financial institutions both conventional and

Islamic, which having different objectives and targeting different markets can only benefit from the BFX 's multi-asset offerings. We welcome Elaf Bank to the BFX network and we are prepared for more firms to join from our region and beyond."

e-Tayseer, the first product of Bait Al Bursa, has been built with the regional MENA market in mind ensuring that its underlying assets are identifiable, and the process flow is fully Shariah-compliant to meet the current requirements of the market and fill the necessary gaps. e-Tayseer offers financial institutions the option to purchase assets directly from asset suppliers based in the GCC region to be used for their Murabaha liquidity management transactions in a secure online environment. With advanced automated features, e-Tayseer makes scheduling and execution of Murabaha transactions more streamlined and afford its users the benefit of reduced trade cycles and manual paperwork procedures.

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About Bahrain Financial Exchange ( BFX ):
The Bahrain Financial Exchange ( BFX ), which recently launched its Conventional Division on the 23^rd November 2011, is a pioneering cross border and multi-asset exchange in the Middle East and North Africa, which is internationally accessible to trade securities, derivatives, structured products and Shariah-compliant financial instruments. The BFX has set up the BFX Clearing and Depository Corporation (BCDC) to clear and settle the contracts it trades. The BFX and the BCDC are licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB).

The BFX is a wholly owned initiative of Financial Technologies Group (FT Group), which currently owns one of the world's largest networks of 10 exchanges connecting fast‐growing economies of Africa, Middle East, India and South East Asia.

Bait Al Bursa (BaB) is an Islamic finance division of the BFX , exclusively offering electronic exchange traded Islamic financial instruments. Bait Al Bursa signifies the 'Home of Exchanges', and represents the BFX 's vision of providing a single venue for all the exchange traded business in the Islamic finance sector.

The BFX Training Institute ( BFX -TI) is an internationally accredited training institute, providing world class conventional and Islamic financial training and development courses.

The BFX is a member of the International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM), the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institution (AAOIFI), and a member of the Associations of Futures Markets (AFM).

www.bfx.bh

About Elaf Bank :
Elaf Bank is a closed shareholding company incorporated in the Kingdom of Bahrain and licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain to operate as an Islamic wholesale (investment) bank with a paid-up capital of USD 200 million. The Bank encompasses the full spectrum of wholesale Islamic banking with an additional differentiating dimension geared towards developing the Sukuk secondary market to act as a marketmaker. Elaf Bank today provides a wide range of financial services to clients involving investment banking (fund-raising advisory, mergers and acquisitions and asset management), and treasury and capital markets (liquidity management, foreign exchange, investment, structured products and derivatives).

Leveraging on its prominent shareholders' base to support all business activities, the Bank relies heavily on the vast expertise of its senior management team (who are backed by a relevant education from top-ranking, Ivy League universities worldwide) to make strategic decisions to both source and create lucrative business opportunities. Elaf Bank 's professional team members have gained experience globally in various industries and projects, including financial services, infrastructure, real estate, transportation, agriculture, healthcare, technology, energy, waste management, etc.; and also have solid business networking capabilities, particularly within the Middle East and South East Asia.

For BFX media enquiries, please contact:
Ghizlane Rahali
Senior Marketing and PR Manager
Bahrain Financial Exchange
Phone: +973 1651 1511
Mobile: +973 39991878
Email: ghizlane.rahali@bfx.bh

For Elaf Bank media enquiries, please contact:
Mona Abdallah
Head of Corporate Communications
Elaf Bank
Phone: +973 17561514
Mobile: +973 36997746
Email: mabdallah@elafbank.net

© Press Release 2011