According to Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia is considering hiking the zakat rate to as much as 20%. We think Bloomberg is taking the 20% rate out of context. Based on our discussions with banks in the EFG Hermes One on One Conference, the takeaway was that Zakat is very much a live issue that is under discussion and nothing has been finalised yet. There is a consensus building among the banks that it will be a minimum of 10% of pre-tax income. There is likely to be certain allowable deductions from pre-tax income. The most notable one would be income from gov't securities. (Bloomberg, Shabbir Malik)