participation account,” says Dikmen. “We invest this money into projects and share our profits with the investors. The other is a gold-selling and buying platform.” By that he doesn’t mean digitally traded ETFs (exchange-traded funds), but physical gold, stored with the bank or delivered into customers’ hands. “That makes it compliant with our principles,” says Dikmen. “Because our business is based on a real economy and real assets. So, we have to [be able to] deliver the gold to you.”
A global opportunity There are future plans, too, for insurance products and a sharia-compliant stock-trading platform, as well as straightforward open banking-facilitated
services, such as account aggregation. While staying close to Germany, Insha is looking to expand to nearby European countries such as Austria, France, Belgium and Austria. Austria was an obvious choice because of its proximity and close cultural connections to Germany. “There are a lot of opportunities in France, too,” says Dikmen. “There are more than five million Muslims in France, but no [obvious] ethical banking provider right now – we know that there are some attempts, but no real operations. It’s similar in Belgium and The Netherlands.” Sensible scale-ups can generate significant returns for neobanks, and there is no doubt that Islamic banking
has the potential to be hugely profitable for them. The Islamic economy is worth an estimated $2.7trillion and, around the world, there are 1.8 billion Muslims, not to mention non-Muslims who feel Islamic banking is better aligned with their personal values. That’s enough to make any opportunistic fintech sit up and take note, especially as the Muslim population as a whole is underbanked. Insha roughly translates from Arabic as ‘to build something’. Given the current disenchantment with the old normal in banking, that ‘something’ could turn out to be very big indeed.
Moral compass: Insha’s principles strike with customers who are disenchanted with mainstream banking
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Issue 17 | TheFintechMagazine
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