Islamic Finance Daily Brief — Saturday, October 24, 2026
Assalamu alaikum! Today's Islamic finance stories — and what to learn from them.
🇴🇲 1. Oman trials automated Shariah-compliant advice under regulator supervision
Oman's Financial Services Authority began a supervised live trial of Rushd on October 19, an automated portfolio platform run by Suhaib Aldughaishi Investments that builds Shariah-compliant portfolios from a client's goals, assets, and risk tolerance. The platform also manages the portfolios over time, covering asset allocation, monitoring, and rebalancing across local and international assets. The trial runs inside the FSA's Fintech Regulatory Sandbox with capped client numbers and transaction volumes, and Rushd cannot serve the public until it passes the trial and earns a final licence.
What to learn: A robo-advisor is software that builds and manages a portfolio for a client. The client answers questions about goals and risk tolerance. The software turns those answers into a mix of assets, then watches the mix and rebalances it when markets move it off target. The Oct 9 edition covered halal robo-advisors as a concept. What is new here is the sandbox. A sandbox is a supervised trial space where a regulator lets a new service run live with real clients under limits. The FSA checks four areas: technical readiness, investment suitability, risk controls, and user experience. Caps on clients and volumes keep any failure small while the regulator gathers evidence. For an Omani saver, the trial matters because automated advice could reach people who have no adviser nearby. In the USA, automated Shariah-compliant portfolios already exist through providers such as Wahed, while conventional automated advice comes from firms such as Schwab and Fidelity. The difference in Oman is the order of steps: the regulator tests the service before the public can use it.
In the USA, the rules work differently. A robo-advisor must register as an investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. A firm managing over $110 million registers with the SEC. A smaller firm registers with its home state, unless it advises clients only online, which lets it register with the SEC at any size. A registered adviser owes clients a fiduciary duty and must file a public disclosure document called Form ADV. No US regulator certifies a portfolio as Shariah-compliant. That is the adviser's own stated method, and the regulator acts when claims mislead clients.
🔗 Source: FurtherArabia
🇲🇾 2. Malaysia funds its 5G network with a MYR5.2 billion Islamic financing
Digital Nasional Berhad, the company that built Malaysia's wholesale 5G network, has closed a MYR5.2 billion (about US$1.3 billion) Syndicated Islamic Term Financing, which it described as one of the largest such facilities arranged for an unlisted Malaysian company. Maybank Investment Bank led the deal, with AmInvestment Bank, CIMB Islamic Bank, RHB Islamic Bank, and UOB Malaysia as joint lead arrangers. The financing replaces a government-guaranteed revolving credit facility that expired on September 29, and it clears the way for the finance ministry's investment arm, MOF Inc., to exit as an ordinary shareholder in early Q4 2026.
What to learn: A syndicated financing is a single large facility shared by several banks. One bank arranges the deal and sets the terms. Other banks join and each takes a share of the facility. The borrower signs one agreement instead of negotiating with each bank separately. Banks join a syndicate because a MYR5.2 billion facility is too large for one bank to carry alone, and sharing it spreads the risk. Each bank earns a share of the return in proportion to its share of the facility. For DNB, the facility is Islamic, so every bank's share follows Shariah-compliant structures. The deal also changes who owns the network. MOF Inc. will give up its ordinary shares, leaving CelcomDigi, Maxis, and YTL Power as equal owners, while MOF Inc. keeps a special share to protect national interests.
🔗 Source: Developing Telecoms
🇸🇦 3. Saudi lender picks a global banking platform to launch new finance products faster
Saudi Arabia's Raya Financing has selected Temenos Core, a banking platform from the software firm Temenos, to run its next phase of growth. The platform will be deployed in a private cloud inside Saudi Arabia and will centralise product and transaction processing across the company's retail finance, leasing, and auto finance businesses. Raya plans to add personal finance, small-business lending, buy now pay later services, and home finance on the same system.
What to learn: The Oct 22 edition covered Nigeria's alt bank moving onto MIZAN, a core system built for Islamic finance from the start. Raya's move is the other route to the same goal. Temenos Core is a general banking platform used by conventional and Islamic institutions alike, and Raya chose it for its existing support for Shariah-compliant products. The difference is in how products are added. A configurable platform lets the lender set up a new product from templates instead of building it from scratch. That cuts the custom development work for each launch. Running the system in a private cloud inside the country keeps customer data and processing on dedicated servers in Saudi Arabia. For a Saudi customer, the change shows up as speed. A small-business owner applying for finance, or a car buyer signing an auto finance deal, reaches a decision through a system that already holds the product rules. In the USA, a customer wanting the same products today goes to a conventional buy now pay later provider for instalments, or to a Shariah-compliant home finance provider such as Guidance Residential for a home purchase.
🔗 Source: IBS Intelligence
🇦🇪 4. Emirates Islamic renews the payments system behind its customers' cards
Network International has renewed its payment processing and back-office agreement with Emirates Islamic, one of the UAE's leading Islamic banks. Under the renewed deal, Network will keep running the bank's card payment processing and back-office operations as the bank expands its digital services. The partnership has already added real-time data services and Slice, an instalment option that lets customers split payments into four to eight instalments without additional fees.
What to learn: Payment processing is the system that moves a card payment from a shop to the customer's bank. When a customer taps a card, the payment travels through the processor, which checks the transaction and routes it to the bank. Back-office work is everything that follows: matching payments to accounts, settling the money, and keeping the records straight. Real-time data services give the bank a live view of that activity, so it can spot spending patterns and problems as they happen. The instalment option works on top of the same system. Splitting a payment into instalments changes how the customer repays, while the underlying payment still moves through the processor. The bank describes the services as Shariah-compliant banking experiences. For an Emirates Islamic customer, the renewal means the card keeps working the same way while the bank adds services around it. A customer furnishing a new home can split the cost across several instalments instead of paying the full amount at once.
🔗 Source: INTLBM
Learn
Shariah banking software: built for Islamic finance, or adapted to it
Core banking software is the system that runs a bank. It holds customer accounts, processes transactions, calculates profit, and keeps the records. Every product a bank sells runs through it. This week's stories showed two routes to the same system.
The first route is software built for Islamic finance from the start. Nigeria's alt bank moved onto MIZAN (Oct 22 edition), a platform from Peerless built for Islamic and non-interest banks. Its records follow Islamic contracts directly: murabaha sales, ijara leases, mudaraba profit sharing, and the profit calculation behind each one. Path Solutions' iMAL works the same way. It is an AAOIFI-certified Islamic core banking platform used by Islamic banks across the Middle East and Africa. ICS Financial Systems' ICS BANKS ISLAMIC is another platform in this group.
The second route is a general banking platform with Islamic support added. Saudi Arabia's Raya Financing picked Temenos Core, a platform used by conventional and Islamic institutions alike, for its existing support for Shariah-compliant products. Oracle's FLEXCUBE for Islamic Banking works the same way. It runs Islamic products alongside conventional ones, including Islamic windows inside conventional banks.
The choice follows the bank. A full Islamic bank picks built-for-Islamic software, because every record already matches its contracts. A conventional lender adding Islamic products picks a general platform, because both sides of the business run on one system. For a customer, the difference shows up as speed. A bank whose system already understands the contract launches a product faster, and the records behind it match what the customer signed.
All sources
- FurtherArabia — Oman robo-advisor trial puts Rushd in FSA sandbox (Oct 24, 2026)
- The Oman Today — Oman advances digital investment services through Rushd robo-advisory trial (Oct 22, 2026)
- Developing Telecoms — DNB closes MYR5.2bn Islamic financing as MOF Inc prepares to exit (Oct 19, 2026)
- IBS Intelligence — Raya Financing selects Temenos Core for product expansion (Oct 23, 2026)
- INTLBM — Network International and Emirates Islamic strengthens strategic payments collaboration (Oct 23, 2026)
- Peerless — Mizan, ethical core banking for Islamic and non-interest banks (product page)
- Oracle — Oracle FLEXCUBE for Islamic Banking (product page)