Manzil, a digital Islamic financial services and alternative financing company announced today its Halal Prepaid Visa card launch in partnership with Koho, Canada’s leading challenger bank.
KOHO is a full-service chequing account that comes with a reloadable prepaid Visa card and integrated app.
This partnership will give Muslims and non-Muslims alike the opportunity to save, spend, and budget without incurring any debt or paying exorbitant fees or interest rates like other card providers. In June 2020, Statistics Canada announced that the household debt ratio rose to 176.9%, meaning there was a $1.77 in credit market debt for every dollar of household disposable income. This product will empower Canadians by taking an active role in their financial affairs and increasing financial literacy. The Halal Prepaid Visas allow users to save and earn cashback on all purchases, round up spare change and save it, automate savings and earn up to an extra 5% cash back at select merchants.
“We are so excited to add this solution as part of the Manzil product offering and to help Canadians who are looking to adhere to their religious principles as well as those who are ethically conscious,” said Mohamad Sawwaf, Manzil’s CEO and Co-Founder. “One of the main principles of Islamic Finance is to not enter into agreements that could potentially allow you to pay or receive interest and this prepaid Visa provides our user base the peace of mind to not have to worry about that anymore.”
“Our data suggests that our community is quite debt averse and having a product like this that rewards them for being a saver and a budgeter is a no-brainer. We expect that this card will be top-of-wallet as a large percentage of this community is underbanked and stays away from conventional products.”
“The team at KOHO is motivated to build holistic financial tools that are equally accessible to all Canadians, and so we are excited to extend our platform to Manzil’s user base to allow them the convenience and support of digital banking” stated Daniel Eberhard, founder and CEO at KOHO.
This end-to-end halal product currently features no interest and Halal cash back. Users will never have to worry about owing money from this card as the money available to them is their own and they will never be able to spend more than what they have. Additionally, the cash back provided happens post-transaction which is Islamically permissible as it’s considered a gift. The companies will be working towards a deeper relationship that will include category restrictions, custom branded Manzil cards, and Halal perks that are tailored towards this user base.