Ethis Group & TheNoor to Drive Islamic Economy with Technology

Ethical and Islamic investment and social finance platform operator, Ethis Group, bolsters brand positioning and digital presence in the Islamic ecosystem with its latest partnership with Noor Luminious Sdn Bhd – a Shariah-guided company that aims to provide useful information that elevates Muslim lifestyles through a mobile application, TheNoor. The partnership was announced and formalized today at a signing ceremony held at Villa Zamara in Kuala Lumpur.

The partnership between Ethis Group and TheNoor enables both parties to provide better awareness and to drive the adoption of Islamic economy products and services for Muslims. As direct consumer platforms, this partnership also expands the consumer base for both parties in providing ethical and Islamic financial options to the consumers.

What the Partnership means?

This partnership enables Ethis and TheNoor to not only provide consumers with convenient access to a host of Islamic products and services but enables both parties to uplift humanity through fintech. Various charity programmes have been rolled out through GlobalSadaqah – a corporate social responsibility (CSR), zakat and waqf management arm of Ethis Group – through this partnership which offers consumers access to various charity (sadaqah) programmes.

Irfan Tarmizi, country manager (Malaysia) of Global Sadaqah, said, “From the perspective of Global Sadaqah, the overall aim of the partnership is to leverage on fintech to make giving charity easy for users of TheNoor and enable them to create an impact across the globe via the TheNoor application. Our partnership with TheNoor has enabled us to help our charity partners, the non-government organisations (NGOs), in expanding their reach to new supporters. This also helps us grow our presence and create brand awareness for GlobalSadaqah especially within the local Malaysian market.”

Actually if we look beyond what is obvious, the partnership really about creating an ecosystem driven by technology which is guided by Islam. If we look back 20 years from now, perhaps this partnership is not just a partnership. However, it is the turning point needed to change the Muslim mindset that everything good must come from the West.

What Ethis and TheNoor is about

Both companies are from Malaysia and have a global reach. Ethis.co is creating social impact in the region with its crowd funding platform as it is the first licensed Islamic crowd funding platform in the world. It not only empowered entrepreneurs but probably inspired thousands of companies to be Shariah guided. The social impact and lives it has change are too great to be mentioned in just a single article.

As for TheNoor, it is arguable the first super app that cater for a truly Muslim lifestyle, and according to its CTO, Mohd. Izzairi Yamin, the best is yet to come. They are working on a feature that is said to enhance the quality of your concentration during ‘Salah’.

The Noor app is not only about spiritual development, it is about investment, charity, worship, e-wallet it is like the whole eco-system that you need to be a progressive’s and inspirational Muslims. This collaboration marks the starting point to develop an ecosystem that can serve the Muslim market driven by servitude instead of profit alone. The Muslim market provides opportunities for exponential growth.

Shariah Compliant Growth

According to the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2019/20, investments in Islamic economy companies have seen tremendous growth of 399 per cent in 2018/19 valued at USD1.2 billion across Islamic economy transactions in halal products, Islamic lifestyle and Islamic fintech.

Umar Munshi, co-founder of Ethis Group, said, “As part of our expansion strategy, our partnership with TheNoor is also an important step for creating awareness on the investment opportunities we have on our platform. This awareness will lead to greater access to retail investors who are looking to take advantage of the growth in Shariah-compliant investment space – a growth opportunity that can best be unlocked through our Ethis platform. We remain confident in our investment management process, which our team has become experts of, and this ensures the sustainability and ethical nature of the investments we promote. We will be rolling out more investment options through our partnership, so watch this space.”

Ahmad Tajuddin Idris Co-Founder and Chairman of TheNoor said, “TheNoor is happy to be associated and to work with Ethis to allow our users to contribute to global charity through Ethis’ GlobalSadaqah platform. We also look forward to working with Ethis on Islamic investments in the near future. We hope this would also drive the uptake of Islamic-centric products and services in Malaysia and globally through the awareness created through this partnership.”

What we can expect

Often times, we come across collaborations that seems to serve the Muslim market, but when you dig deeper it is just a camouflage to tap into the lucrative Muslim market. This time it is more than that, this collaboration has the potential to open new markets and opportunities for Syariah affluent entrepreneurs

When asked does TheNoor app has any plans to offer a halal crypto exchange, Ahmad Tajuddin said, “We cater for the needs of Muslim consumers, and we know crypto currency is a new dynamics in the economy, so we are looking the development closely and will strive to provide something that is Syariah guided.”

Currently, Ethis provides users of TheNoor app with access to a variety of local and international verified charity campaigns. For users of TheNoor who are residing outside of Malaysia, Ethis helps facilitate their donation process by allowing transactions in international currencies such as in USD, EUR, GBP, and AUD amongst others). Taking it a step further, TheNoor app users who are involved in cryptocurrency investments can also give donations directly using their cryptocurrency on all GlobalSadaqah’s campaigns featured on TheNoor app.

It is no secret, that our interest based economic system is crumbling and some other system that is more just will be come to replace it. Capitalism used to dominate but then it took a turn when Prof Mohd Yunus the Nobel Prize Winner introduce social business concept. Now every business that thrives has a social element to it, and creating social impact can be lucrative as well as meaningful.

It is no longer a public secret that the interest-based economy is crumbling, perhaps 20 years down the road, this collaboration will be recorded in history as the first tangible steps to revive Muslim identity as respected, referred and revered Ummah.