Islamic Finance Daily Brief — Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Assalamu alaikum! Today's Islamic finance stories — and what to learn from them.
Today's stories
🇺🇸 1. A halal stock screening platform brings its service to American investors
Nurmukhammad Ismoilov, the founder of the halal investing platform Akinda, has moved to the San Francisco Bay Area this fall to lead the platform's expansion into the United States. Akinda screens more than 15,000 stocks across the US, Canada, and the UK against AAOIFI Shariah Standard No. 21, and it gives each company a clear verdict, a dividend purification calculator, and a check of portfolios investors already hold with their brokers. The platform reports around 10,000 registered users and about 20,000 monthly visitors, and it licenses its screening technology to businesses through an API, including a company in Texas. In the Bay Area, Akinda has joined the Alchemist and Silkroad Innovation Residency, and it is now in partnership talks with US brokerage firms so American investors can screen a stock and invest in it in one place.
What to learn: Stock screening is the check that decides whether a company passes Islamic rules for investment. Screening was covered as a concept in the Oct 6 edition. The check has two parts. The first part looks at what the company does. A company whose main business involves interest-based lending, alcohol, gambling, or pork fails the check. The second part looks at the company's finances. The AAOIFI standard behind Akinda's screens sets three limits: debt below 30% of market capitalisation, cash plus interest-bearing securities below 30%, and income from impermissible sources below 5%. A company passes only when it clears both parts. What is new here is the delivery. Akinda runs the same check across 15,000 stocks and sells the result to other businesses through an API, which is a connection that lets one company's software ask another company's software for data. A brokerage that plugs in that connection can show a Shariah verdict inside its own app, instead of sending the investor to a separate screening site. For an American investor who has been checking stocks one by one, the change is practical. The verdict arrives where the investment decision happens. The Learn section below looks at how different countries are changing the rules for Islamic finance.
🔗 Source: TechBullion
🌍 2. Smaller suppliers get a faster route to payment in Malaysia
Maybank Islamic and Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia have launched Malaysia's first supply chain financing guarantee scheme anchored by mid-tier companies. Under the scheme, suppliers, mainly micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, can receive early payment against approved invoices. Maybank Islamic provides the Shariah-compliant financing, while Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia offers guarantee support to eligible mid-tier companies through its BizJamin-i scheme. Guarantee fees apply only when the facility is used, and financing requests and disbursements are handled through digital channels.
What to learn: Supply chain finance was covered in the Oct 26 edition. A supplier delivers goods and waits for payment, and supply chain finance pays the supplier early against the approved invoice. The question that decides whether the scheme works is who the bank trusts. In most schemes, the anchor is a large corporation. The bank trusts the large buyer's promise to pay, so it advances money to the buyer's small suppliers. This scheme changes the anchor. A mid-tier company, which is a company larger than a small business but smaller than a large corporation, takes the anchor role. The bank would normally hesitate, because a mid-tier company's promise carries more risk than a large corporation's promise. The guarantee closes that gap. Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia promises to cover part of the loss if the anchor cannot pay, so the bank can advance money it would otherwise hold back. The supplier benefits in a direct way. A small supplier that used to wait for the buyer's payment date now receives cash against an approved invoice, and it does so without pledging collateral it may not hold. The fee rule matters too. The guarantee fee is charged only when the facility is used, so a supplier pays for the support only in the months it draws on it. In the USA, a supplier in the same position usually turns to conventional factoring, and a guarantee-backed Shariah-compliant version of this facility is not a standard product at US banks.
🔗 Source: Fintech News Malaysia
🌍 3. Uzbekistan issues its first Islamic banking licence
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan has granted Open Bank the country's first licence to provide Islamic banking services. The regulator's board approved the decision on October 23, and the licence, numbered 1-I, allows the bank to offer Islamic financial services through an Islamic window. The move follows the adoption of Uzbekistan's Islamic banking law in March 2026, which set the legal basis for six types of Islamic financial operations: murabaha, mudaraba, musharaka, ijara, salam, and wakalah. Days after the licence, the Central Bank hosted the Samarkand Islamic Finance Forum with INCEIF University of Malaysia and Al Muamalat Consulting, covering regulation, governance, liquidity management, training, and financial literacy. Officials say other commercial banks are already preparing applications for licences.
What to learn: An Islamic window is a section inside a conventional bank that offers Shariah-compliant services. Islamic windows were covered as a concept in the Oct 21 edition. The window keeps its own products, records, and Shariah oversight, while the bank around it continues its conventional business. The reason a window comes first is practical. A new Islamic bank needs capital, staff, systems, and customers from nothing. A window starts from a bank that already has branches, customers, and systems, and adds a Shariah-compliant section to them. The licence is what makes the window legal. Open Bank needed a separate licence because Uzbekistan's law treats Islamic banking as a distinct activity, and the licence names exactly which operations the bank may run. The licence also brings a governance requirement. The bank must run its own Islamic finance council, and council members will need an AAOIFI certificate from July 2027. For an Uzbek customer, the change is concrete. A survey cited by the country's Muslim Board found that 68% of the population does not use traditional banking services for religious reasons. That customer can now walk into an existing bank and ask for a service that follows Islamic rules, instead of staying outside the banking system. In the USA, there is no separate Islamic banking licence category. A bank that wants to offer Shariah-compliant products does so under its ordinary bank charter and state law.
🔗 Source: Spot
Learn
How countries are changing the rules for Islamic finance
Islamic finance is growing, but not at the same speed everywhere. The difference comes down to how each country changes its rules. Developed countries adjust laws they already have. Developing countries write new Islamic finance law, then issue licences under it. That difference decides how fast products reach ordinary customers.
Start with the developed countries. The UK has no Islamic banking law at all. Its approach, in the regulator's own phrase, is no obstacles and no special favours. Instead of a separate system, the UK changed its existing tax law step by step. It removed the double stamp duty charge on Islamic home finance in 2003, recognised Islamic contracts as alternative finance arrangements in the Finance Act 2005, gave sukuk the same tax treatment as conventional bonds in 2009, and regulated sukuk as bonds rather than investment schemes in 2010. Islamic banks answer to the same regulators, the FCA and the PRA, on the same basis as conventional banks, and the Bank of England runs a liquidity facility that lets them meet liquidity rules without interest-bearing instruments.
The USA and Australia follow the same pattern with different results. In the USA, there is no separate Islamic banking licence category, and a bank offers Shariah-compliant products under its ordinary charter and state law. In Australia, the Board of Taxation reviewed the tax treatment of Islamic finance in 2010 and recommended parity with conventional products, but no legislation followed. The pattern is the same in all three countries: fit Islamic products into the existing system. The results differ by how far each country took it.
Now the developing countries, where the law itself is the recent news. Malaysia has the fullest framework. Its Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 covers Islamic banking, takaful, and capital markets, and a central Shariah council at the central bank sets the rules every institution follows. Uzbekistan passed its Islamic banking law in March 2026 and issued its first licence last week, as covered in today's third story. Pakistan adopted the AAOIFI tawarruq standard on October 16, 2026, capping tawarruq at 5% of a bank's total financing, and banks there have submitted conversion plans toward a January 2028 timeframe. Nigeria shows what happens when the law stalls. It has no specific Islamic banking Act. Its central bank issued non-interest banking guidelines in 2011, and progress since has been slow, with a shortage of staff trained in Islamic law cited as one reason.
That leaves the question of whether this is a regulatory issue or an adoption issue. The answer is that it is regulatory first and adoption second. Where the law does not recognise the contract, taxes it twice, or offers no licence category, no amount of customer demand can fix it, and the product cannot launch. Once the law allows it, the constraint moves. Customers have to know the product exists, banks have to find it profitable at small scale, and trained scholars and staff have to be available. The UK proves the second stage. Its rules have given parity for more than fifteen years, and Islamic banking there is still small. Uzbekistan and Pakistan show the first stage still being cleared. For an ordinary investor, the practical read follows the same split. In developed countries, the question is which products exist and where to find them. In developing countries, the question is whether the law and the licence exist yet.
All sources
- TechBullion — From Tashkent to the World: Nurmukhammad Ismoilov Takes Halal Investing Global With Akinda (Oct 27, 2026)
- Fintech News Malaysia — Maybank Islamic, CGC Open Up Supply Chain Financing to Mid-Tier Firms (Oct 27, 2026)
- Spot — Uzbekistan issues first licence for Islamic banking (Oct 26, 2026)
- AnewZ — Uzbekistan moves to build Islamic finance ecosystem (Oct 27, 2026)
- Mohammed Amin — British government policy on Islamic finance: Finance Act 2005 and alternative finance arrangements
- Pakera — State Bank of Pakistan adopts the AAOIFI tawarruq standard, October 2026
- Board of Taxation — Review of the taxation treatment of Islamic finance in Australia (2010)
- ResearchGate — Laws of Islamic banking in Nigeria: no specific Act, 2011 central bank guidelines