Bridging the gap: Malaysian Islamic fintech opens the doors for crypto donations

The value of Bitcoin around the world collectively stands at around US $160.4 billion. Bitcoin alone accounts for 0.4% of the world's money. On a conservative assumption that just 5% of this is owned by Muslims, it would easily amount to over US $8 billion, most of which should be eligible for zakat which will be a total of US$200 million! This alone has the power to change so many lives around the globe for the better.

Zakat is the obligatory charity calculated on 2.5% of liquid assets held for at least a full year. Since Bitcoin and its likes qualify as a liquid asset, Muslims must take care to include their cryptocurrency assets in the calculation for their zakat obligation. There are indeed many Muslims with cryptocurrency assets looking for an option to pay zakat.

GlobalSadaqah in collaboration with SINEGY and LuxTag has come together to facilitate cryptocurrency donations on their platform. A major aim of this collaboration is to raise awareness and to educate the community of Muslim cryptocurrency owners about the need to pay Zakat on their digital assets.

GlobalSadaqah is an award winning Islamic Social Finance Platform focusing on CSR, Zakat and Waqf Management. It features a wide range of campaigns from trusted and verified partners from across the globe.

SINEGY is a digital asset exchange which is approved by the Securities Commission Malaysia and is generally considered among the top 20 fintechs in Malaysia.

The crypto community can make a huge positive impact if the resources are utilized well. According to Mohammed Alim, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of GlobalSadaqah, this is a major step forward and an important milestone for GlobalSadaqah on its way to build a reliable and vibrant ecosystem for impactful charity.

As of today, with the addition of Bitcoin, GlobalSadaqah allows donors to donate using FPX (direct bank transfer system), Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and various e-wallet options in Malaysia such as TouchnGo, Boost, GrabPay, and RazerPay. Donations via ApplePay and GooglePay are also available for donors donating from countries where the service is supported. This is in line with GlobalSadaqah's mission to make giving charity as easy and as efficient as possible.

Umar Munshi, Managing Director of Ethis Global, the parent company of GlobalSadaqah said, ‘Blockchain has a lot of potential to increase the effectiveness of social finance. This is just the first step for us to integrate blockchain into the Islamic fintech ecosystem we are building. Another interesting area is blockchain-based notarizing of Waqf (Islamic endowments) documents and wills, among other things.’

Islamic social finance has been identified as a large and important avenue to alleviate the challenges brought about by the ongoing pandemic, and can play a large role in economic recovery through social upliftment. Zakat alone is estimated to be at least five hundred billion dollars a year. Platforms like GlobalSadaqah will play a key role in ensuring the collection and distribution of funds is carried out effectively.

Copyright Press Releases 2020