Nine months in the making, Investment Account Platform (IAP) has signed a collaborative agreement with the private sector arm of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) allowing the Islamic fintech platform to scale up its expansion beyond the Malaysian borders.
As part of the partnership, the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) will facilitate IAP in reaching out to ICD member countries with its Shariah compliant bank-mediated funding platform, one that draws inspiration from the crowdfunding model. According to ICD CEO Ayman Sejiny, the multilateral organization will assist IAP in marketing its crowdfunding fintech solutions to other major Islamic markets such as Central Asia and Africa, in addition to the traditional Islamic markets in the Arab regions.
“We work very closely with our six shareholder banks to ensure that both the investors and the entrepreneurs can benefit from the risk-sharing concept with the banks assuming the role as investment intermediary. We believe that our experience in Malaysia can be successfully replicated and implemented in other Islamic markets,” Joann Maryan Enriquez, the CEO of IAP Integrated, shared.
The brainchild of former Bank Negara Malaysia governor, Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the platform was an initiative to position Malaysian Islamic banks in the sphere of investment intermediary. Over RM200 million (US$47.7 million) have been raised through IAP since February 2016 and IFN Fintech has learned that the multibank platform in the midst of introducing new components to its funding model, in order to serve a wider market.
A possible indicator signalling IAP’s intention to broaden its remit is it collaborating with the ICD to also look at attracting viable, but under-bankable, SMEs in Malaysia to raise funds via the IAP platform.