What do Bitcoin and Sharia have in common? The Bank of England.
Concerted efforts to embrace new areas of finance such as these are uncommon, and the move regarding digital currencies is seemingly being taken in tandem with other schemes. The UK under-secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, Tobias Ellwood, said at the Telegraph newspaper’s Middle East Conference Wednesday that London “had ambitions to stand alongside Dubai and Kuala Lumpur as a global hub for Islamic finance,” it reports.
The UK is already the first country in the world to issue an Islamic bond known as Sukuk. The 2014 move involved a bond worth £200 million (US$310.54m) and “was the first step in encouraging wider investment from the region to the City of London.”
