BERLIN – At an exclusive meeting in Germany, the Bahraini Al Baraka Banking Group B.S.C. (“ABG”) announced on September 30 the introduction of the “insha” project to provide Islamic interest-free digital banking services in Europe, Zawya reported.

“We’re indeed very excited to mark today, a historical milestone, which can be summarized as 40 years of achievements and pioneering success in the global financial industry,” Adnan Ahmed Yousif, Chairman of the Board of Albaraka Turk and President & Chief Executive of ABG, announced at the meeting.

ABG General Manager Melikşah Utku said: “We’re very happy to commission insha for the first time in Germany. We aim to provide convenience to Turkish citizens and other Muslim communities in Germany with a complete experience of branch-free and digital banking services.”

He continued that “There are 20 million Muslims living in Europe. One fourth of this population is actually living in Germany. Muslims have a hard time utilizing the financial services in Europe. To provide a solution to the issues, we have initiated the insha project. Our aim is to provide these services to the Muslim communities around Europe”.

ABG is an Islamic wholesale bank licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain and is listed on Bahrain Bourse and Nasdaq Dubai stock exchanges. It’s a leading international Islamic banking group providing its unique services in countries with a population totaling around one billion.

The Islamic bank offers retail, corporate, treasury, and investment banking services, strictly in accordance with the principles of the Islamic Shari`ah. The authorized capital of ABG is US$ 2.5 billion.

The Group owns subsidiary banking units and representative offices in 16 countries, which in turn provide their services through over 700 branches.

Islamic Service

As a branch-free and completely digital banking service, insha will first provide digital participation banking services in Germany, then throughout Europe.

“Insha” is developed upon main banking infrastructure of Solaris Bank AG of Berlin, which is a fully licensed by Germany Banking Regulation and Audit Institution BaFin and Germany Central Bank ECB and providing banking platform to corporate businesses.

In the first phase, insha will provide basic banking services such as opening bank account, account management, debit card, payment, and wire transfers. ABG plans to include all fundamental offers of participation banking in the second phase and aim to propagate participation banking both in digital and traditional channels throughout Europe.

Comprising solely of digital processes and digital products, insha removes the requirement of having physical documentation or going to the bank branch and offering the users to open an account in a few minutes.

Insha isn’t solely an application that offers financial services; it also focuses on the daily lives of the users and includes a series of applications that will facilitate their daily lives such as zakat assistant.

The users may access insha directly, by downloading the app from Appstore and Google Play. The www.getinsha.com website hosts detailed information regarding the products and services as well.