London, Asharq Al-Awsat—International ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s (S&P), Fitch Ratings and Moody’s have all awarded Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) their highest long-term and short-term credit rating scores, making the bank the most highly-rated institution among regional and international multilateral development banks, and the Muslim world’s most highly-rated institution, according to an IDB press release.

S&P and Fitch gave the bank an AAA long-term rating, with Moody’s awarding it an Aaa long-term rating, representing the highest scores for all three institutions, denoting “stability,” “reliability” and “low credit risk.”

In terms of short-term ratings indicating the potential likelihood of an institution defaulting on its debt obligations within a 12-month period, IDB also scored positively, gaining A1+, F1+ and P-I ratings from S&P, Fitch and Moody’s, respectively, indicating the bank’s “strong” and “superior” ability to meet debt obligations short-term.

All three institutions reaffirmed their outlook for IDB as stable.

Last month Moody’s published a report predicting positive growth trends for the global sukuk market, pointing to growing investor comfort with Shari’a-compliant investment instruments like sukuk, alongside more conventional methods of finance. The report predicted “slightly more” than 51 million US dollars’ worth of sukuk would be issued by year’s end, beating levels recorded in 2011.

In May, IDB priced a 1 billion US dollar five-year sukuk sale.