By NUR HAZIQAH A MALEK / Pic By MUHD AMIN NAHARUL

BANK Islam Malaysia Bhd recently launched its social finance initiative, Sadaqa House, which is primarily aimed at providing products and services to collect sadaqah, waqf and hibah.

Through the Sadaqa House, the public can contribute to realising social finance projects for sectors such as healthcare, education and entrepreneurship through the bank’s digital crowdfunding partnership with Ethis Ventures Sdn Bhd and GlobalSadaqa.com.

Bank Islam CEO Khairul Kamarudin said the initiative is part of the Islamic bank’s digital journey to ensure convenience, efficient servicing and high impact with the ease of implementation.

“Sadaqa House is also part of our strategic agenda for social finance as we encourage community ethical investment to support economic development in underserved sectors,” he said at the launch of the platform in Kedah last Friday.

Khairul said the bank is utilising technology in its Shariah solutions to deliver a service that is aligned with the current digital trend.

He added that the bank is leveraging on the public’s interest to invest in social finance projects of their own choosing through this initiative.

“With our value proposition to promote transparency in place, contributors can ensure the funds contributed are being channelled accordingly and track the progress of the chosen project.

“We expect that this would also provide a multiplier economic benefit across the supply chain,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ethis Ventures founder Umar Munshi said the platform is not limited to Muslims and Malaysians.

“We are proud to partner Bank Islam, the pioneer Islamic bank in the region which embraces financial technology (fintech) to deliver greater servicing to its community,” he said.

Ethis Ventures was recently incorporated in Malaysia by Ethis Pte Ltd Singapore to develop new Islamic fintech solutions, while also being the only Shariah-compliant operator licensed with the P2P (peer-to-peer) financing licence by Securities Commission Malaysia.

As an alternative to the Sadaqa House, the public may also contribute using Bank Islam’s services, namely its Internet banking, TAP Mobile Banking-i or by using their Bank Islam credit card.

Any amount of money can be donated by the public into the Sadaqa House fund account, while Bank Islam will match the raised fund at the rate of 1:1 to a maximum of RM500,000.

The launch of the Sadaqa House initiative was officiated by Kedah State Industry and Investment Committee chairman Datuk Dr Ku Abdul Rahman Ku Ismail, Bank Negara Malaysia governor Tan Sri Muhammad Ibrahim, Bank Islam chairman Datuk Zamani Abdul Ghani and Khairul.

In the first phase of Sadaqa House, Bank Islam will be collaborating with a few non-governmental organisations such as the Institut Jantung Negara Foundation, Yayasan Sultanah Bahiyah, Technology Park Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Anyone with social projects benefitting the underserved may submit their proposals to [email protected] for further evaluation and consideration.