Abstract
Who has created the ?Al-Dar Islamic Fund'? Is it Pictet which is a Geneva based Private Bank which is in compliance with the Islamic culture? The answer to this buzzing mind boggling question is ?No'. As confirmed, the contained shares are not Islamic compliant and secondly the targeted profile (Islamic investor) has been misunderstood. With these two assumptions, a series of questions follow. Why? And what should have been done differently to fit into the culture of the Islamic investor? Firstly, we have tried to determine what were the cultural mistakes committed by Pictet. Secondly, we have determined the differences between the non-Islamic and the Islamic investor. Finally we arrived at the definition of a matrix that is to be used when creating an Islamic compliant financial instrument. The conclusion of this paper is that cultural differences are not only raised because of human direct interactions, but as a result of elaborated instruments or services rendered to each other. In a nuclear world where trade is widespread, proposing an Islamic cultural compliant fund should be made with more cultural analysis and not only in view of a pure financial approach or a basic Islamic image compliancy test. The focus should be on transitioning the local mindset to accept diversification and to think in terms of global development especially when rendering services for a multinational Private Bank. Therefore, Private Banks should use a different approach rather than actually putting themselves into risky situations that could turn out to be sensitive and controversial towards multicultural issues. This approach is unacceptable especially in a bank wherein, the financial approach should be computable in terms of reputation, money and loss.
