Standard Chartered Saadiq offers a genuinely global Islamic wealth management service, operating across 11 markets spanning Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. This footprint, closely aligned with Standard Chartered’s broader retail banking presence, enables it to deliver a consistent yet locally relevant offering, reflecting varying levels of market maturity while maintaining strict adherence to Shariah principles.
The result is a platform that connects clients to domestic opportunities and international investment solutions, supporting increasingly sophisticated cross-border Islamic wealth management needs. The strength of this global platform is reflected in its financial momentum, with the wealth business delivering strong and sustained growth alongside a steadily expanding asset base in recent years.
Saadiq delivers global market access across client segments. Affluent clients are able to invest in a broad range of international funds, sukuk and other assets directly through their in-market platforms, enabling global diversification without leaving their domestic booking environment. This is particularly relevant in markets where local investment options remain limited. For private banking clients, this is complemented by access to established wealth centres such as Singapore, the UAE and Jersey, supporting broader portfolio diversification and more complex wealth needs.
This award highlights our focus on delivering innovative, globally connected Islamic wealth solutions that help clients build and preserve wealth with confidence
Ali Allawala
Saadiq offers a product suite that is broad and deeply integrated, spanning funds, sukuk, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), structured products, discretionary portfolios, takaful and foreign exchange. This breadth is central to its wealth strategy, allowing the bank to balance income generation, capital preservation and growth in line with individual needs and risk profiles for clients across the wealth continuum. Its offering includes a wide range of Islamic funds and extensive sukuk access globally, alongside structured products designed to deliver defined outcomes through participation in global markets.
At the higher end, a key differentiator is the bank’s ability to combine global product expertise with discretionary portfolio management (DPM). Its Signature Securities Portfolios, managed with Lazard Asset Management as sub-adviser, provide clients with access to actively managed Islamic equity strategies that have delivered strong performance since inception. These solutions address a longstanding challenge in Islamic wealth management, namely the need to match the performance and diversification benefits of conventional portfolios while maintaining full Shariah compliance.
Shariah–compliant performance
Digital infrastructure plays a central role in delivering this proposition at scale. Saadiq offers a fully integrated digital wealth platform that enables clients to access and transact across a wide range of Shariah-compliant investments, including mutual funds, foreign exchange, equities and fixed income instruments, with features such as online mutual fund trading available 24/7 and digital access to sukuk in select markets, such as Indonesia.
The platform provides real-time pricing, portfolio monitoring and execution across asset classes, supported by advisory tools, performance analytics and personalised recommendations. This creates an end-to-end digital wealth journey, from onboarding through to ongoing portfolio management. High levels of adoption underline the strength and scalability of this model, with a clear shift towards digital engagement and the majority of transactions now completed through digital channels.
Client engagement is strengthened through digitally embedded advisory channels, including direct access to relationship managers via in-app chat and real-time service support, ensuring that the digital experience remains closely integrated with personalised advice. Alongside this, Saadiq has invested in financial education through its Wealth Insights platform, which provides market analysis, portfolio tools and guidance to support informed, Shariah-compliant investment decisions.
A key foundation of Saadiq’s wider platform is a sustained focus on talent and capability development. The bank has embedded Islamic banking expertise across its distribution network, ensuring that relationship managers are equipped to deliver integrated advice rather than operating in product silos, while continuing to invest in training to deepen expertise across newer markets. This supports consistent delivery of high-quality client outcomes across its global network.
“This recognition reflects the strength of our Islamic wealth management proposition and our commitment to serving the evolving needs of clients globally,” says Ali Allawala, head of Islamic Banking, UAE, and head of wealth and retail banking, Group Islamic Banking. “By bringing together deep Islamic finance expertise, a robust Shariah governance framework and Standard Chartered’s international network, we continue to provide clients with access to differentiated cross-border wealth opportunities. This award highlights our focus on delivering innovative, globally connected Islamic wealth solutions that help clients build and preserve wealth with confidence.”
Standard Chartered Saadiq combines global reach, product depth and a digitally enabled advisory model to deliver one of the most comprehensive Islamic wealth propositions available today, setting the benchmark for the industry and making it the world’s best Islamic bank for wealth management for 2026.
