Scaling up investments in Islamic fintech

Henk Jan Hoogendoorn is the Chief Financial Sector Officer at the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), and Dr. Dalal Aassouli is Assistant Professor of Islamic Finance at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU).

Islamic Fintech is an emerging sector that focuses on delivering ethical and fair financial services to its clients and users, based on Islamic finance principles. The target audience can include the Gen Z and Millennial generations, who are attracted to responsible and fair access to their financial needs including in saving, investing, donating and lending. Fintech solutions, through convenient wallets, platforms and Apps services accessible by mobile phones are emerging fast as a convenient solution. Many of the products are available in white label solution for banks, while others like ALGBRA take a Revolut approach by adding more lifestyle elements to its app. 

In Europe, where the Muslim population averages around 3%, there is a growing need for Islamic Finance solutions – including to purchase a home. The classical interest-based mortgages do not work well for everyone and we are progressively witnessing many “rent to own” Fintechs emerging in the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Interestingly this is also of interest to non-Muslims.