About Us

About

About Shariyah Review Bureau

Shariyah Review Bureau (“SRB”) is the Corporate World’s leading Shari’a Advisor with a scholarly presence in more than 15 countries from US, Europe, Africa, GCC and Asia. The breadth of geographical reach crossing national boundaries makes it one of few Shari’a consultancy bodies that can meet clients’ true international business requirements.

SRB provides professional Shari’a Advisory and Shari’a Audit services to public and private businesses, including commercial and corporate debt, Sukuks and Islamic equity markets, initial public offerings screening & Investment Banking Practice, energy firms and information providers. It serves multiple sectors of the financial industry with clients from Hong Kong, US, UK, Canada, France, Switzerland and the GCC. In Saudi Arabia alone it holds the market share of more than 26 % of Saudi Investment Companies licensed by the CMA and 53 % of the Co-operative Insurance Firms Listed on the stock exchange market and 28 % of the Financing Companies licensed by Saudi Central Bank. Its service offerings span a broad set of complementary disciplines that include product certification, consultation, Shari’a Audit and equity screening.

Wataniya Insurance Company (“Company”) fulfilled the requirements of Shari’a control systems by appointing Shari’a Review Bureau (“SRB”) as its Shari’a Advisor, which in turn appointed Shaikh Muhammad Ahmed Sultan as members of the Company’s Sharia Supervisory Board (“SSB”). Additionally, SRB appointed two specialized teams to take care of the Shari’a review and Shari’a audit functions. The SSB Roles and Responsibilities are summarized below:

---

Shari’a Review of Controls

• Reviewed the Company’s articles of association and recommended the applicable amendments to ensure compliance with Shari’a standards.
• Reviewed the products documentation such as plan wording, proposal, schedule, and quotation to verify the compliance with the Shari’a standards and SSB guidelines.
• Reviewed the organizational structure of the Company to ensure its compliance with Shari’a standards.
• Prepared the Shari’a Supervisory Board charter.
• Reviewed policies and procedures of various departments and (if considered necessary) made amendments.
• Checked the mechanism of distributing insurance surplus and the deficit treatment in accordance with Shari’a standards.
• Evaluated the Company’s financing activities in addition to reviewing its investments to ensure compliance with Shari’a standards.
• Issued a Shari’a Certificate which clarifies the Company’s activities, operations and products in compliance with Sharia standards

---

Sharia Audit

A team from the SRB Audit Department performs the tasks of the Sharia audit process on behalf of the SSB (according to the Governance Standard No. 2 issued by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions “AAOIFI”) by preparing the annual audit plan and conducting its work and issuing a report on the results of the audit process, which includes On the result of the audit of all the company’s activities, departments and operations:

• Ensured that the Company’s two accounts namely the shareholder and the Policyholders account are segregated.
• Examined the investments in both accounts to ensure their congruence with Shari’a standards.
• Confirmed that the Company’s deficit treatment methodology in the Policyholders account is in congruence with the SSB guidelines
• Reviewed the documents to ensure surplus in the insurance account is distributed to Policyholders as per the directives of the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the SSB guidelines.
• Checked the risks covered by the Company are approved by the SSB and are in accord with the Shari’a standards.
• Checked the reinsurance operations and its status of implementation in light of SSB guidelines.
• Reviewed the financial statements to verify the Company’s activities with the Shari’a standards and SSB guidelines.
• Reviewed the administrative contracts executed by the Company’s management to ensure their compliance with the Shari’a standards.
• Prepared the Shari’a audit report entailing recommendations, identified trends and improvement strategies including findings on non-compliance and practical steps to deal with them in light of SSB’s recommendations.
• Released the SSB report based upon the results of the Shari’a audit findings.

 

---

Management’s responsibility towards the SSB

• Provide all information that the SSB requires or deems necessary to form an opinion on the practices of the Company.
• Provide SSB with complete access to all records and transactions from all sources, including access to legal advisors and related company records.
• Obtain the SSB written approval for any new transaction that the Company’s management wishes to enter as well as present any new forms or contracts prior to using them in transactions.
• Provide clarifications required by the SSB, especially in matters where the SSB believes that the Company did not comply with the Shari’a rules and principles.
• Present to the SSB all documents, contracts and agreements which were presented to the Company from other entities and institutions, even if they have their own separate SSB, to enable the Company’s SSB to review the same prior to execution.
• Avoid engaging in reinsurance risk that does not comply with the Shari’a rules and principles.