&gt; Posted by Iftin Fatah, Investment Officer, Overseas Private Investment Corporation

The <a href="https://thegiin.org/knowledge/publication/annualsurvey2017">2017 Annual Impact Investor Survey from the GIIN</a> showed that respondents, which make up a diverse and active group of impact investors, committed more than $21 billion to impact investments in 2016 and planned to commit 17 percent more capital than that in 2017. Geographically, however, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) only makes up 2 percent of assets under management.

Islamic finance is largely concentrated in three markets – Iran, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia – but it spans nearly every part of the world, including MENA, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. For its part, Islamic finance has grown over the past two decades, with total assets reportedly totaling roughly <a href="http://sunnewsonline.com/islamic-finance-assets-leaps-to-2-trillion/">$2 trillion</a>. Despite this growth, Islamic finance still makes up a small share of the global financial market. These two areas of Islamic finance and impact investing are ripe for potential collaboration. Out of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, <a href="https://www.cgap.org/publications/trends-sharia-compliant-financial-inclusion">650 million</a> are living on less than 2 dollars a day.

For starters, for those who aren’t familiar, let’s quickly go over how Islamic finance works. Islamic finance is derived from principles rooted in the rulings of Sharia law. The key principles of Islamic finance include: prohibition of interest, profit and loss sharing, and prohibition of gharar (excessive uncertainty, deception and risk). At its core, Islamic finance is centered around mutual well-being for banks and clients. The most notable difference between Islamic finance and Western finance is that interest or riba is forbidden. Rather, banks sustain themselves by sharing in the risk of their financial services with clients, operating on a profit-loss basis. For example, one of the most common Islamic finance products is murabaha, which is a cost-plus-mark-up (non-interest-bearing) loan. Financers bear the cost of the loan, and instead of charging clients interest, clients are charged a mark-up. Accordingly, banks act as investors rather than creditors.

Globally there are largely untapped markets that show immense potential for Islamic finance, such as sub-Saharan Africa, which is the world’s fastest-growing population and has a large Muslim contingent. According to a 2015 Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report entitled <a href="https://www.eiuperspectives.economist.com/sites/default/files/MappingAfricasIslamicEconomy.pdf">Mapping Africa’s Islamic Economy</a>, to date, Islamic finance has a presence in 21 African countries. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the EIU report notes that while Sharia-compliant goods and services appeal to the values of Muslims, majority Muslim populations are not essential for a vibrant Islamic economy sector.

In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, one of the primary drivers of the region’s Islamic economy is the need for quality infrastructure. An inadequate supply of roads, railways and ports, and insufficient energy supplies and housing shortages are among the challenges facing the continent. Further, an urbanizing population will drive demand for even more infrastructure. Sukuk, Islamic bonds structured in such a way to generate returns to investors without infringing upon Islamic law, are of growing interest to governments trying to raise capital for such projects. For example, the Nigerian government, <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/business-news/243336-nigeria-starts-sale-n100-billion-sukuk.html">recently announced</a> the sale of a N100 billion ($326 million) debt sovereign sukuk on the local market, meant to fund road infrastructure in the country.

The <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home.html">United Nations Development Programme</a> (UNDP) rightly recognizes the potential of this untapped market and in May 2017 collaborated with the <a href="http://www.irti.org/English/Pages/default.aspx">Islamic Research and Training Institute</a> (a member of the <a href="https://www.isdb-pilot.org/">Islamic Development Bank Group</a>) and the <a href="http://www.iicpsd.undp.org/">Istanbul International Center for Private Sector in Development</a> in producing a joint report entitled <a href="http://www.iicpsd.undp.org/content/dam/istanbul/docs/IslamicFinance_BroWEB.pdf">I for Impact</a>. The report focuses on recommendations for growing Islamic impact investing. Among these recommendations include creating an environment that promotes Islamic finance alongside the larger ecosystems of inclusive finance and responsible investing. Support should be offered to the creation and functioning of an effective capital market system for Islamic finance impact investing, including supporting existing and new actors in this space.

To further these recommendations, UNDP and the IDB established the Global Islamic Finance and Impact Investing Platform (GIFIIP) in 2016. The GIFIIP serves as a hub for Islamic finance impact investing actors. The aim of the GIFIIP is to be a collaborative working space that: supports the development of Sharia-compliant impact investing tools; serves as a forum for knowledge-sharing, policy dialogue and advocacy; and functions as a marketplace for deal sourcing and matchmaking. The GIFIIP strives to position Islamic finance impact investing as one of the leading enablers of Sustainable Development Goals implementation around the world, through private sector engagement.

With their rigorous moral and social criteria and emphasis on business-society relations, the principles of Islamic finance and impact investing have many areas of overlap. Bridging the two sectors and leveraging their ideological similarities is a natural response to the growing challenges related to development financing, particularly in Muslim-majority countries. Islamic finance can be a strong and virtually untapped source to finance sustainable development in many areas around the world.

Have you read?

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2013/04/26/sharia-and-savings-islamic-microfinance/">Sharia and Savings: Islamic Microfinance</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2013/01/15/continuing-the-conversation-on-inclusion-in-the-arab-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Continuing the Conversation on Inclusion in the Arab World</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2016/11/08/islamic-microfinance-advances-and-converges-with-fintech/">Islamic Finance Advances and Converges with Fintech</a>

Bridging Islamic Finance and Impact Investing

Shannon Dwyer

Middle East and North Africa

Saudi Arabia

United Arab Emirates

Access Usage Gap

Challenges and Crises

Customer Centricity

Delivery Channels

Digital Financial Services

Enabling Environment

Financial Capability

Financial Health

Financial Service Providers

Financial Technology

Fintechs

Impact Investing

Mobile Banking

Neobanks

Payments

Personal Financial Management

Refugees and Migrants

Remittances

Resilience

Underserved Groups

Article

Ahsan Ullah moved from his home country of Pakistan to Dubai to find work as an electrician. Like many other people who have relocated to the Gulf Coast region for better work opportunities, he sends 75 percent of his salary back home to his family in Pakistan. Ahsan found a way to transfer money overseas in <a href="https://nowmoney.me/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NOW Money</a>, the first digital banking solution for low-income migrant workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). He uses NOW Money’s app to transfer the money he earns servicing cable cars and other machinery, and his family receives it the next day.

When Accion Venture Lab first invested in NOW Money in 2017, we were <a href="/invested-in-now-money" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">incredibly excited</a> by the company’s vision to tackle the challenges its customers, migrant workers in the GCC, faced. These customers have unique financial needs as they often earn just $200 to 300 a month and typically send 70 percent of those wages to family members back home. The traditional financial infrastructure in the GCC prevents these workers from accessing bank accounts, excluding them from the cashless economy. Without a digital banking solution like NOW Money, workers like Ahsan have to wait in line for hours to send much-needed money back home to their families.

[caption id="attachment_23786" align="alignright" width="450"]<img class="wp-image-23786" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/now-money-kat-budd-ian-dillon.jpg" alt="NOW Money co-founders" width="450" height="253" /> NOW Money was founded in 2015 by Katharine “Kat” Budd and Ian Dillon.[/caption]

The last 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic have only made those realities tougher, as the brick-and-mortar institutions often relied on by this population temporarily closed, all but shutting these individuals out from the financial world. As noted by co-founder Katharine Budd in an <a href="/access-to-digital-finance-is-a-lifeline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">episode of our VentureKast podcast</a>, “Having access to digital finance, as long as you’ve got an internet connection, is a lifeline.” Inclusive fintechs like NOW Money are critical to supporting this lower-income and often-overlooked population throughout the pandemic, continuing to provide their products and services safely and digitally.

Accion Venture Lab is pleased to <a href="/uae-based-fintech-now-money-secures-7m-to-expand-digital-banking-solution-across-the-gcc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">announce our follow-on investment into NOW Money’s Series A round</a>, to support the company as they continue to build their moat as the first fintech company in the GCC to use digital banking technology to provide access to fairly priced and well-designed financial products to the migrant workers that need them.

To reach these migrant workers, NOW Money partners with businesses to provide an end-to-end digital payroll solution for their employees. They manage the backend for their partner companies and allowing workers to receive their salaries directly into the NOW Money app. NOW Money bundles a suite of relevant, digital financial services into their app, including a contactless-enabled debit card, mobile top-up, bill pay, remittances, and more, aggregating all the services these migrant workers need to manage their financial lives.

We’re excited to continue supporting NOW Money as they disrupt the region’s fintech scene for a few core reasons:
<ul>
 	<li>Focus on an underserved segment: NOW Money continues to target the migrant worker population in Gulf States like the UAE and the broader GCC. The migrant population in the Persian Gulf Coast region is a historically underserved segment. Employers often mistreat their workers, and workers are in dire need of financial services. These workers earn minimal wages — typically ranging is between $200 to 300 per month, depending on occupation — and often live in overcrowded “labor complexes” with poor living conditions. Additionally, today’s UAE banking standards are exclusionary, preventing customers that earn less than 3,600 dirhams per month (approximately $980) from accessing a bank account. As a result, workers often turn to Wages Protection System (WPS) cards, which function as payroll cards with free once-a-month withdrawal from an ATM, but no functionality at merchants.</li>
 	<li>Multi-product, full-service offering: Our team at Accion Venture Lab has been excited about the impact potential of <a href="/7-fintech-trends-to-watch-in-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">holistic neobank solutions</a> for a while, and NOW Money continues to provide us with the ability to test and learn more about this approach. The company continues to design its product and application with its users in mind, providing positive financial benefits in many ways, including bringing workers into the formal financial system, providing a convenient and competitively priced remittance platform, and increasing access to other digital products to better manage one’s financial life (e.g., mobile top-ups and bill pay). We continue to be impressed by the team’s ability to execute on its product roadmap, and are excited to watch it continue to expand.</li>
 	<li>Digital-first solutions during the pandemic: As the pandemic continues to disrupt life, NOW Money’s customers need these digital products now more than ever. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns began, the company has seen engagement with the app more than double as the pandemic sped up the trend towards digitization. The team has prioritized investing in their user experience and interface during this time by working hand-in-hand with customers to design a product that suits their needs. We believe this digital shift is here to stay and are excited to see the company continue to drive high levels of engagement.</li>
 	<li>Strong future growth potential: While the company has already made significant progress in building its footprint in the UAE, we continue to be particularly excited by its growth potential, both within and outside of its flagship country. Within the UAE, the company’s <a href="https://nowmoney.me/2020/10/commercial-bank-of-dubai-to-partner-with-now-money/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recently announced banking partnership</a> with the Commercial Bank of Dubai will continue to fuel growth. The need for this product is just as acute outside of the UAE, and we look forward to supporting the company as it <a href="https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/innovation/startups/fintech-startup-now-money-secures-%247m-to-expand-across-the-gcc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">brings its suite of products to Saudia Arabia</a> and the broader GCC region.</li>
</ul>
We’re proud to be a part of NOW Money’s journey and growth over the last few years, and we believe that this series A will propel them to financially include even more migrant workers in Gulf Coast countries. As NOW Money continues to grow and scale, they can provide the critical financial tools and services that migrant workers need to support themselves and their families back home.

Migrant workers in the UAE get a digital banking solution

Saudi Arabia

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Migrant workers in the UAE get a digital banking solution

From the Center for Financial Inclusion

Bridging Islamic Finance and Impact Investing