Faisal Talpur at Islamic Fintech 2
My daily aim for my team is simple: Move forward with clarity of purpose, make sure to be creative in what you do and improve upon yourself daily.
We have heard that you’re about to launch a global investment platform. Would you like to share details of this innovative exchange with our readership?
Yes. We are, In Shaa Allah, launching what is supposed to be the world’s first Shari’a-compliant global investor marketplace. We believe this will be the future face of how global investments will work. This is a cloud bases platform that will allow users to trade openly. By trade, we mean traditional trade. The platform will also behave as an intermediary on many occasions when required. An example of this can be trade finance, where the platform canbuy the asset and then sell it to the end buyer with the margin being the profit. Other features will include investment comparison, personal finance management, fundraising, invoice discounting, asset or inventory finance, and other products to help businesses withtheir working capital.
It will be a truly global online investment platform where investors will congregate to benefit from assorted and pre-qualified offerings. I am very excited to see this being developed as a technologically advanced, feature rich, innovative online marketplace and communication network where, for the first time, product providers will be given the opportunity to have a one to one direct contact with investors, while investors will be able to communicate with other fellow investors enabling a global exchange of friendly investment network.
Such offerings on the platform will attract UK and global businesses and provide them with powerful alternative to fall back on. As the offering will be based on cloud technology this will give the power back to the users and allow them to use the service from anywhere.
This is absolutely awesome. How can our readers and other people invest in this project, if this project is open to external investors at all?
The idea of the project is to bring like-minded people together. We are always open for discussions be it an individual or an institutional investor. If there is a synergy and common ground, we are very open to form a mutual beneficial relationship, which will help the end product. I always believe that the more like-minded people on board the quicker you move forward and that’s where the core strength lies in “Togetherness”.
You have lived in London for long. Do you think Islamic banking and finance has any meaningful future in the UK?
Yes, undoubtedly. I am a firm believer of good positive change. There should always be another way. We live in the world ofchoices. From the choice of shampoo to the choice ofcars. Then why shouldn’t we be able to choose the financial system we want to be associated with? David Cameron (former UK Prime Minister) made an announcement in 2013 putting London on the map of global capitals of Islamic finance. We, the British Muslims hope that the successive UK governments will continue to provide a level-playing field to Islamic banking and finance.
What challenges do you perceive for financial services in the wake of growing role and influence of FinTech?
I feel it’s a trust, expectation and timing issue. If financial services industry and all the more important consumers in their hearts accepts technology, then the FinTech revolution will prevail in a comprehensive way. For FinTech to become mainstream FinTech companies need to approach the market where their products are understood and relied upon by the people. Change, adaptability and acceptance are the 3 challenges any revolution faces, and bringing FinTech into our daily lives won’t be different. There are speedy innovations happening in other areas, but in FinTech that is not the case. Surely, we need to speed up that process. This, however, has to go hand with creating market awareness, adaptability to change and acceptance.
ISFIRE FINANCE REVIEW ~ www.isfire.net
