UK’s Financial Conduct Authority authorises GII portfolio company Offa for home purchase plans

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has authorised Offa, a portfolio company of Gulf Islamic Investments (GII), to provide home purchase plans (HPPs), the Sharia-compliant alternative to conventional residential mortgages, for customers across the UK.

The authorisation will soon allow Offa, the UK's leading Islamic property finance fintech, which has been expanding rapidly via acquisitions, staff hires and product launches, to become the third active provider of HPPs in the market.

Offa believes that this is the first licence by the FCA for a home purchase plan to a newly-authorised entity in more than seven years.

It is another major accomplishment for Offa, the first Sharia-compliant bridging finance provider and the team that previously introduced the first Sharia-compliant buy-to-let (BTL) product to the UK.

Commenting on the announcement, GII’s co-founders and co-CEOs, Mohammed Alhassan and Pankaj Gupta, said: “We are delighted that the FCA has authorised one of our portfolio companies, Offa, to provide home purchase plans to British customers. This is another important step in their aggressive growth plans and we are expecting further exciting announcements in the near future.” 

Sultan Choudhury OBE, executive chairman at Offa, said: “This is a significant and hard-won milestone for us at Offa. The real winners of course will be our customers, who will now gain greater access to our fast and easy Islamic home finance services thanks to our modern, tech-driven and paperless systems.

“By combining our teams’ decades of industry experience with the latest technology, we are bringing Islamic finance into the 21st century, leaving behind the onerous paperwork and cumbersome systems that many customers have typically had to suffer in the past. Gaining this important authorisation is another step toward achieving that.”

Since charging interest is forbidden in Islamic finance, a home purchase plan involves the
Islamic finance principles of co-ownership-with-leasing where customers acquire the property in partnership with Offa and make monthly payments to increase their share, over time owning it.

Offa recently acquired Bank of Ireland’s Alburaq Sharia-compliant home finance portfolio in a landmark deal utilising a unique funding structure, including more than 350 home purchase plans.

The company provides an ethical finance model designed in accordance with Islamic finance principles, which means not charging interest and investment into sectors deemed harmful to society – such as alcohol, tobacco, animal testing, and the arms trade.