{"id":15074,"date":"2025-08-22T00:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T00:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/15074\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T00:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T00:53:10","slug":"southeast-asias-incredibly-dynamic-islamic-finance-market-is-drawing-in-non-islamic-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/15074\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Asia\u2019s \u2018incredibly dynamic\u2019 Islamic finance market is drawing in non-Islamic players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over 280 million Southeast Asians, about 40% of the region\u2019s population, identify as Muslim. That\u2019s spawned demand<\/a> for goods and services that cater to a more Islamic lifestyle. It\u2019s more than just halal food: Muslim consumers also demand more modest fashion or cosmetics that don\u2019t use pig-derived products or alcohol.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even Southeast Asia\u2019s finance sector is becoming more halal. Islamic finance<\/a> in Southeast Asia totaled roughly $859 billion in 2023, up from $754 billion in 2020, according to a study from the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector and the London Stock Exchange Group.<\/p>\n

Mambu, a cloud-native, software-as-a-service, composable core banking platform based in Amsterdam, wants to tap this growing market. \u201cThe Southeast Asian market, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia, is incredibly dynamic in terms of how they\u2019ve grown in the Islamic banking space,\u201d says David Becker, managing director and head of APAC sales at the firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company already works with Southeast Asian clients like Bank Islam, Malaysia\u2019s largest provider of shariah-compliant financial products, and Bank Jago, an Indonesian digital bank.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Mambu<\/p>\n

Becker says that Islamic finance is growing just as quickly as traditional banking, and so Mambu hopes to provide tools to support shariah-compliant products like profit sharing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike in conventional banking, Islamic financial institutions must avoid companies that deal in products that are harmful or considered \u201charam\u201d, like pork, alcohol, or gambling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Islamic banks also can\u2019t charge interest and so must instead generate a return through some other mechanism, like profit-sharing or leasing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Becker is optimistic that Southeast Asia\u2019s younger and more mobile-savvy population will gravitate towards digital financial solutions\u2014and particularly those that reflect Islamic principles.<\/p>\n

Indonesia, the world\u2019s largest Muslim country, is a clear target market for Islamic finance. Neighboring Malaysia, where two thirds of the population identify as Muslim, is another option. There are also significant Muslim populations across Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand.<\/p>\n

Malaysia, the first country in the region to adopt Islamic finance, has \u201creached a peak\u201d when it comes to growth, says Cedomir Nestorovic, a professor at the ESSEC Business School in Singapore who focuses on Islamic business. Instead, Indonesia offers more potential for retail banking and \u201ctakaful\u201d insurance, a type that follows Islamic principles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is plenty of room for progress in the country, so many companies want to come to Indonesia,\u201d Nestorovic says.<\/p>\n

Yet he cautions that Southeast Asia presents its own risks. For one, unlike the Middle East\u2019s more homogenous market, Southeast Asia is more heterogenous, meaning businesses will need to tailor their offerings to an array of different economies, consumer bases and regulatory regimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Becker, from Mambu, acknowledges the challenges present in Southeast Asia, including the need to follow regulations. Yet the size of the opportunity outweighs the risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just see it growing and growing, and I think that\u2019s a factor in why governments and regulators have been so supportive,\u201d he says. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 280 million Southeast Asians, about 40% of the region\u2019s population, identify as Muslim. That\u2019s spawned demand for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[79,5431,18,1176,1729,19,17,188],"class_list":{"0":"post-15074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-editors-picks","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-markets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}