Lloyds TSB: Islamic mortgage demands ‘through the roof’
October 12, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Mortgages
The amount of people taking out Sharia-compliant mortgages has risen dramatically in recent years, according to Lloyds TSB.
Islamic mortgages are designed for Muslims who would not want to take out a regular mortgage due to Sharia law restrictions.
According to media relations manager at Lloyds, Emile Abu-Shakra, up until recently, many Muslims have been obliged to rent “their whole lives”.
He said: “In the last couple of years, we’ve gone from offering services just in five branches – in Luton, Birmingham and London – to now offering them in every single branch around the country.
“So you can see that demand really has gone through the roof.”
Sharia Islamic Law states that making money from money is not permitted, therefore all forms of interest are forbidden.
Risk sharing is the basis of the Islamic financial model, whereby the bank and customer share any risk involved in an investment in an agreement that sees any profit divided between them.
The latest statistics from Datamonitor show the Islamic mortgage market will grow by 47 per cent per year and may be worth £1.4 billion by 2009.
