RIMES Technologies, a financial data provider, has added the MSCI Global Islamic Indices to its portfolio of data. The new indices are designed to reflect Sharia investment principles.
“The MSCI Global Islamic Indices cover over 50 developed and emerging countries and over 50 regions such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Arabian markets,” says Henry Fernandez, chief executive officer and president of MSCI Barra.
The MSCI Global Islamic Indices were introduced to provide a consistently constructed and maintained family of indices following Sharia investment principles, while still retaining replicability for international investors. The indices incorporate dividend purification rules, which MSCI believes result in more relevant benchmarks for Sharia portfolios.
The indices are derived from the applicable MSCI country indices. Then according to the MSCI Islamic Index Series Methodology, the MSCI country indices are screened against a series of business activities and financial ratios, and a dividend adjustment factor is applied.
The indices can be accessed through RIMES Online, providing browser-based access to pre-formatted reports for viewing, printing and downloading. Alternatively the indices can be viewed through RIMES RTXLNET, a desktop add-in that turns Microsoft Excel into a data and analytics browser.
For the middle and back office, the indices are also available via RIMES SmartFiles, a file service that feeds the data directly into any applicable system in any desired file format.