Singapore-headquartered Algorand and Kuala Lumpur-based IBF Net will be joining forces to engineer and launch to market a range of blockchain-based solutions including social cryptocurrencies which would integrate Shariah compliant financial principles.
Algorand, the company behind the world’s first open source, permissionless, pure proof-of-stake blockchain protocol for the finance industry, will be building this suite of products using the Islamic social finance research output from IBF DigiLabs, the technology arm of IBF Net which focuses on providing smart technology-based solutions for Islamic commercial and social finance, under the latter’s Benevolence program.
“The uniqueness of the Benevolence program comes from the introduction of social cryptos as the mechanism for incentivizing the contribution of both assets (donations) and efforts (volunteering),” explained Dr Mohammed Obaidullah, a lead research economist at the Islamic Research and Training Institute, a member of the IsDB Group. “The use of social cryptos will complete the ‘benevolence’ space by integrating what are traditionally viewed as two distinct frameworks — charity or donation of funds and contribution of time or volunteering of efforts.”
The integration of social cryptos, experts believe, would optimize the mobilization and allocation of limited Sadaqah, or ‘benevolence-driven’ resources. Mohammed Alim, CEO of IBF Net, revealed that the first use case under this framework to go onstream is a platform to facilitate Qard Hasan, or benevolent loans (interest-free loans), using the Algorand protocol.
The array of Islamic social finance products are being developed by IBF DigiLabs, a Singapore based company that was recently set up by IBF Net, a Malaysian Labuan based company. The products are being developed on Algorand protocol under a strategic partnership with Algorand Foundation.