Indonesian Islamic fintech platform Alami has raised a pre-seed funding round by Singaporean fintech investor Tryb Group.
Tryb is an early stage investor with has multiple fintech companies across Southeast Asia in its portfolio. Other investments include First Circle in the Philippines and Redshift in Singapore.
Alami obtained a license from Indonesia’s financial services authority (OJK) last month, making it the third Shariah-compliant fintech platform officially registered in Indonesia Alami currently operates as a marketplace for Islamic financing, working with multiple partners, including Shariah banks to facilitate financing for small and medium enterprises.
Shariah-compliant financial products can’t charge interest as this is prohibited by Islamic law. Instead, the platform uses a profit-and-risk sharing system to get returns. In addition, the loans borrowed should be used for halal businesses only, which means any type of business that could be related to gambling, selling alcohol, and other things outlawed by Islamic law, are forbidden.
Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, but the share of Islamic finance compared to conventional finance is still small, according to Alami’s co-founder and COO Harza Sandityo. However, he believes that shariah fintech is an untapped market in Indonesia with a promising future and therefore needs to be explored.
“Alami aims to prove that Islamic financing is able to compete in the modern fintech industry. We also want to boost Shariah financial literacy, especially among millennials, through various online and offline activities,” Sandityo told KrASIA.
Sandityo also believes that Alami can help accelerate Islamic financial inclusion in Indonesia, given the growing public acceptance of Islamic fintech and more industry players starting to eye this segment.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad
