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NAB to offer “Muslim-friendly” loans

June 14th, 2009 | Austrolabe | Uncategorized

The Sunday Telegraph reports today that the National Australia Bank (NAB) is to offer “Muslim-friendly” loans that do not charge interest.

For the trial’s purposes NAB will pump $15 million from its not-for-profit finance division into the program, which will distribute the funds through various community finance schemes around the country. The bank will monitor the take-up and assess potential demand.

Interest-free loans of up to $1000 will be available to help finance household items, such as washing machines and fridges.

The loans would also be available to non-Muslims.

This seems to be NAB’s No Interest Loan Scheme which does not appear to be specifically targeted at Muslims although the fact that it is interest-free would obviously appeal to the Muslim community.  These loans are only available to low-income earners who cannot borrow money from elsewhere on account of their low income.  It’s unclear whether the NAB would also extend these loans to Muslims who cannot borrow money from elsewhere on account of their religious beliefs.

4 comments ↓

#1 Ahmed AS on 06.14.09 at 11:13 am

This will be good. MCCA needs a bit of competition. They’ve been exploiting the Muslim community for far too long.

#2 Asad on 06.14.09 at 12:39 pm

Ahmed are you from Muslim Village?

http://muslimvillage.com/forum.....p;p=828251

Just to give you a little bit more info, the product will be available for low income earners who are looking to purchase personal/household items (eg. white goods, furniture, electricals) and are unable to obtain finance elsewhere.

Once they meet the strict qualification criteria, the applicant will need to provide a quote for the item they intend to purchase. Payment will then be provided directly to the retailer and repaid by the applicant via repayments from their Centrelink payments.

Alhamdulillah we are really excited and honoured to be involved with this project. Inshallah we are in the process of formalising our agreement with NAB and this product could be the first step in a whole range of future Islamic products Inshallah.

Please don’t ask me any more questions as all will be revealed once we launch Inshallah.

W’Salaam
Ahmed

#3 Amir on 06.14.09 at 1:00 pm

These loans do not appear to be Islamic loans or specifically targeted at Muslims. This is NAB’s No Interest Loan Scheme (NILS), which is meant to help low income earners buy white goods and household items such as fridges, televisions or furniture.

You can read more about it here.

#4 Andrew Reynolds on 06.23.09 at 2:52 pm

If you want to start an institution that follows Shari’a and is based here it would be fairly simple – set up a religious charitable fund, as I discussed here. They are a common device used by the Christian churches in Australia, for example the Anglican Church in Perth. There is no reason why the exact same legal structure could not be used by Muslims in Australia. It would just take some work to get it together. Any profits could then be used for charitable work, education or for any other religious purpose.
The basic infrastructure would be fairly simple to set up, including internet banking.
If anyone seriously wants to do this I would be happy to help with some advice.

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