Middle East’s best Islamic project finance house 2026: Standard Chartered Saadiq
Standard Chartered Saadiq’s strength in Islamic project finance is underpinned by its ability to combine global structuring expertise, sustainable finance capabilities and deep experience in Shariah-compliant capital markets.
Through Saadiq, the bank operates one of the most extensive international Islamic banking platforms, spanning the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Its proposition combines dedicated Shariah expertise with wholesale banking capabilities across corporate banking, treasury and capital markets, allowing the bank to support sovereign, corporate and financial institution clients through increasingly sophisticated Islamic financing structures.
A defining feature of Standard Chartered’s performance during the review period was its role in expanding the sustainable Islamic finance market. The bank was active in several landmark green and sustainability-linked sukuk transactions, demonstrating the growing role of Shariah-compliant structures in financing infrastructure, energy transition and long-term corporate investment needs.
Among its most significant transactions was National Central Cooling Company (Tabreed)’s $700 million five-year green sukuk. The transaction, issued in March 2025, represented the first green bond from a pure-play district cooling services provider, with proceeds used exclusively to finance and refinance district cooling assets. Standard Chartered played a central role across the transaction, acting as joint global coordinator, joint lead manager, joint bookrunner, joint green structurer and joint sukuk structurer. The bank also supported the development of Tabreed’s Green Financing Framework and the process of obtaining a second-party opinion from Sustainalytics.
A defining feature of Standard Chartered’s performance during the review period was its role in expanding the sustainable Islamic finance market
The deal highlighted Standard Chartered’s ability to bring together project-linked assets, sustainable finance standards and Islamic capital markets execution. Tabreed achieved its targeted $700 million size, while securing the tightest coupon it had achieved on a sukuk issuance and attracting a diversified base of high-quality investors.
The transaction also reflected the increasing convergence between Islamic finance, infrastructure investment and sustainability. By supporting the development of green sukuk structures linked to real assets, Standard Chartered demonstrated its ability to apply Shariah-compliant financing techniques to sectors requiring long-term capital investment, including sustainable infrastructure.
Beyond sustainable finance, Standard Chartered maintained a leading position in the wider sukuk market. During 2025, the bank arranged major transactions for issuers including the Government of Sharjah, the Government of Ras Al Khaimah, ports operator DP World, real estate developer Majid Al Futtaim and ADNOC Murban, the debt capital markets borrowing and rated entity for Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil company. These mandates reflected the bank’s ability to execute large, complex transactions across sovereign, quasi-sovereign and corporate sectors.
Supporting these capabilities is Standard Chartered Saadiq’s Shariah governance framework, which combines oversight from an independent committee of international scholars with an in-house Shariah department working alongside product development and origination teams.
By combining sustainable finance expertise, global distribution and Islamic structuring capabilities, Standard Chartered continued to demonstrate how Shariah-compliant finance can support increasingly complex project capital requirements across the Middle East.
