In a first for Australian banking, NAB has today announced the launch of a specialised financing product for Islamic business customers looking to invest and grow.

Designed to meet Islamic Law requirements, the product structures financing as a lease where ‘rent’ and ‘service fee’ are paid instead of ‘interest’. The Bank has also invested in achieving the endorsement of Amanie Advisors, a global Shariah advisory firm on behalf of its customers to provide comfort around the law compliancy while saving clients valuable time and money.

Dr Imran Lum, Director Islamic Finance in NAB’s Deal Structuring and Execution team said; “We’re really proud to be able to offer such a valuable service to Australia’s Muslim community.

“There are some really interesting structural elements that we negotiated to finalise this latest offering in order to ensure that we comply with Australian federal and state tax laws and at the same time remain true to Islamic principles.

“We’re looking forward to further opportunities to roll out this financing product, which is designed to cater for transactions over $5 million for commercial property development and construction purposes.”

Binah who specialise in delivering full scale construction services have utilised NAB’s new Islamic financing product on their latest development.

Managing Directors of Binah, Amen Zoabi and Khalil Hafza said; “Working with NAB has been brilliant. Being able to work with a team who understands our unique requirements has made the whole process seamless.”

“With this financing in place, we’re now able to deliver a wider range of projects all over Sydney and scale our operations to maximise our potential and growth in the next decade.”

NAB’s Islamic Financing contract proposition has come about as a result of a 5-year program which has successfully integrated an Islamic legal framework into NAB’s Standard Finance Agreement.