Category Archives: Hibah

The Rise of Qardh

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I wrote earlier in July 2014 about re-branding Wadiah following discussions the industry had with BNM. In that meeting, the key take-away was that there is an intention to re-brand Wadiah into Qard, to which the industry reacted negatively as Wadiah has always been used for short-term deposit structures where discretionary hibah “gifts” are given to depositors. BNM contention was that Wadiah do not meet the practice of the Bank where Wadiah was supposed to be taken as “safe-keeping based on trusteeship” (Wadiah Yad Amanah) or “safe-keeping with guarantee” (Wadiah Yad Dhamanah). The main argument was the under the Wadiah structure, the ownership of the fungible asset remains with the customer and the Bank has not obtained sufficient consent from the customer to utilise their funds, specifically for Wadiah Yad Dhamanah.

Wadiah 2014

The solution for the above conundrum, offered by BNM, is therefore, migrate to Qard-based products, where by virtue of it being a loan from the customer to the Bank, the ownership is transferred to the Bank allowing the Bank to utilise it as it pleases, while guaranteeing the loan amount upon demand (you have to repay back the loan).

As mentioned in my earlier writing, some industry players has clear reservation to convert Wadiah to Qard, seeing that the various guidelines are coming thick and fast to comply with requirements under Investment Accounts. Handling another major change in regulations will just hamper the industry’s growth.

Now, 16 January 2015. The revised Concept Paper for Wadiah was issued. We are given 1 month to respond with our feedback.

Wadiah CP

The biggest shock is that the paper has re-defined Wadiah as only Wadiah Yad Amanah i.e. safe-keeping trusteeship. There was NO mention of the contract that most Banks are currently using for Current Account / Savings Account i.e. Wadiah Yad Dhamanah (safe-keeping with guarantee) which allowed the Banks to utilise the funds for Bank’s activities. What this removal of definition means:

  1. The Bank takes Customer Assets and safely keeps as Wadiah in the Bank until a request to withdraw the Asset is made by the customer. The Bank must return the initial Asset to the customer upon request, with no obligation to provide any other benefits.
  2. The Bank does not have the right to utilise this Asset under Wadiah anymore #.
  3. If the Bank intents to utilise the money for purpose of generating returns, then the rules of Qard must apply i.e. for the Bank to obtain the right to utilise the money, the ownership of the money must be transferred to the Bank i.e. the customer no longer has financial and ownership rights when the funds are utilised by the Bank to generate returns. It is a loan by the customer to the Bank. As owner of the money now, the Bank has full rights to the returns. The Bank has no obligations to the customer except of return of the loan on demand. Discretionary hibah “gift” may be given, but questions may soon come on its validity when it is deemed as “Urf” (customary, no longer discretionary).

# Previously under the rules of Wadiah Yad Dhamanah, if the Bank intends to utilise fungible Assets deposited by customers to Banks such as money, sufficient consent must be obtained before the Bank utilise the money for other purpose (including for generating returns). In reality, this consent is really lacking especially for a daily product such as Current Account or Savings Account, resulting in insufficient rights to use customer’s fund to generate returns. The Banks are also not allowed to agree the returns up-front for the use of the money yet circumvents this by publishing historical rates of returns instead. This “historical return” soon was construed as non-discretionary and deemed as returns that is treated as Urf’. Therefore, Wadiah Yad Dhamanah was totally removed by BNM as a viable Islamic Banking concept, and now to be replaced by Qard (where ownership of funds are wholly transferred to the Bank).

Utilisation of Money

In any circumstances, Banks do utilise the Customers’ money for banking activities, including investments. If we retain Wadiah under this new BNM definition, then it will greatly impair Islamic Banks if we are not able to utilise collected funds for generating profit. The Wadiah moving forward will only apply for Safe Deposit Box services where the Bank can charge a minimal fee for safe-keeping services. Trying to apply it to anything else will be a challenge.

Wadiah 2015

The Qard guidelines needs to come sooner than later. At least the Exposure Draft or the Concept Paper needs to be available for discussion and for Banks to assess the Impact going forward. The impact by IFSA 2013 will be fully felt right after the coming months of June 2015, and this new regulation will further add to the re-branding of Islamic Banking currently taking place in Malaysia.

Rebranding Wadiah

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A few days ago we had an interesting session with the Malaysian regulators. The agenda listed as “Discussion on the Wadiah Concept Paper”, a paper which was issued in December 2013, and had caused quite a stir in the industry. The main content of that paper was the treatment of Hibah (gift) payments on balances maintained in the Wadiah accounts, and the underlying rules of Wadiah.

For clarity, Wadiah (safe keeping) contract is used in Malaysia for savings / transactional type of accounts. The intention is that the customer enters into a relationship with the bank as a Wadi’ (custodian of deposit) and Mudi’ (owner of capital / depositor). The mandate is purely on a custodial basis. In practice, the customer places funds with the bank for the purpose of safe keeping, therefore the bank must become just a custodian of the depositors money. However, it is unlikely that the bank just receives the funds and not utilise it for an economic activity.

Because of this use of funds by the bank, Malaysian scholars view it is only fair as a good banking practice, that some discretionary returns may be given to customer for the use of the customer’s funds. This returns, while not promised up-front, has over a period of time, become customary (Urf’) in its execution and distribution. The whole arrangement is known as Wadiah Yad Dhamanah (safe custody with guarantee). As I understand it, only Malaysia offers this contract for Savings and/or Current Account products in the world.

In all other geographies, the Current Account and/or Savings Account commonly use either the Qard (interest-free loan) contract, or the Mudharaba (profit sharing entrepreneurship) contract.

Wadiah vs Qard Update

All these years, we are of the view that there is a identifiable difference between Wadiah and Qard. Under Qard, the arrangement is where the customer provides the bank with a loan i.e. the deposit amount which must be returned to the customer upon demand. While Wadiah also operates the same way, the only difference is that Wadiah allows for the granting of discretionary Hibah arising from the use of the customer’s funds.

So it was a small surprise to note that in the Wadiah Concept paper issued in December last year, there is a specific mention that while there is a differentiation in relationship for Wadiah and Qard, the rules of Qard will also apply to Wadiah. The issue of discretionary Hibah is also raised that if the Hibah is paid consistently, it becomes customary (Urf’) and therefore can no longer be viewed as “discretionary”.

That is why I was surprised that the meeting a few days ago asked this question; “What are the views of Islamic Banks if the Wadiah contract is now demised and replaced by Qard, while the practice of paying discretionary Hibah is retained even for Qard? Would the banks be open to this “change in name only” while the principles of the product remains the same?”

My concerns with this direction are:

  1. Such allowance to continue to provide Hibah on a Wadiah (in name only) will only be temporary and will eventually turn to what is practiced in the middle east i.e. no payment of Hibah.
  2. Confusion may ensue as there will be two separate rules governing a Qard i.e. different rules in Malaysia and what is being practised elsewhere. This opens up the Malaysian-version of Qard to criticism and I believe, sooner than later, consolidation of practice and understanding will happen.
  3. The investment effort to be spent into Wadiah products will now no longer make sense. Eventually, Wadiah will cease to be a savings-and-deposit-building proposition for the Bank. It will revert into a basic, transactional and low balance proposition, which might not be attractive for Banks to further invest into. Other options will now take prominence.

Will Wadiah also survive this re-branding of Islamic Banking in general in Malaysia? We are expecting some changes to surface this end of year and it will put further pressure on the industry which is already reeling from the existing changes that was introduced. From where I am sitting, it seems that soon, Wadiah will be re-branded into a version of Qard, as a pre-cursor of eventually becoming “pure” Qard.

Looks like another one will soon bite the dust.

Synopsis of 2013 BNM Exposure Drafts

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The following is what I understood from the various Exposure Drafts issued by BNM on 9 December 2013. Of the 7 exposure drafts that we received, I have earlier summarised the Wadiah Exposure Draft, and I will ignore the Bai-Inah Exposure Draft as we are no longer subscribing to the Bai Inah structure at the workplace.

Please find the remaining Exposure Draft review for your understanding.

Kafalah ED

2013 ED – Kafalah – One of the key issues for a Kafala (Guarantee) contract is the charging of fees for providing the guarantee services. The main issue has always been the quantum of fees charged, either in percentage of the financing or via a fixed charge for all financing amount. The justification of this charge is always tricky, because technically the fee should not be imposed if there is no call for the guarantee (in cases of no default). The guarantee will only materialise if the customer defaults, that’s when the work happens to justify any fees. Issuing a piece of paper at the start of the relationship to guarantee the amount does not amount to too much work, and there no funds disbursed to any parties (unfunded). To justify the charging of any fees based on percentage instead of actual work, especially for huge amounts of financing guarantee, can be problematic to justify in the eyes of Sharia.

Waad ED

2013 ED – Wa’d – At one point of time, Wa’ad (Promise) seems to be the answer to many structures, where a promise is given without any requirement to transact before a specific event. The terms therefore can be negotiated and re-negotiated without the need to strictly specify the terms of the transaction and re-signing of documents. This gives a lot of leeway for deals to happen.However, at the end of the day, Wa’ad remains as only a promise, legally distanced from a contract or an agreement. Enforcement at the courts are therefore without full confirmation of all the terms, and makes for a loose structure and potential disputes. This flexibility and enforceability remains one of the key risks to a Wa’ad contract, which is why until today Wa’ad is generally transacted between known parties i.e. between established and trusted Financial Institutions.

Wakala ED

2013 ED – Wakalah – Wakala (Agency) will remain an integral contract for Islamic Banking as it validates a lot of action that can be done by the Bank, in order to remain efficient. In general, Banks hold a lot of expertise in various fields, such as investments, financing, leasing and trading; something a normal customer may not want to be involved in on a daily basis. An Agency arrangement conveniently provides for this. Anything that improves the efficiency by leveraging on the Bank’s expertise and infrastructure, can be arranged via Agency. However, the way we practice it usually is transparent to the customer. In practice, Agency Fees are the right of the Agent, and the waiver of such fees, although allowed, is sometime seen as not adhering to the spirit of Agency and entrepreneurship. You do the work as an Agent, but don’t earn any fees as it is waived. In real life, this does not happen as whenever a work is completed, you should earn something.

Tawarruq

2013 ED – Tawarruq – As Tawarruq (Three-party Murabaha Sale) becomes more prominent in the Malaysian market, I was surprised that the ED was not more comprehensive than this. There are sequencing issues not addressed but more importantly, there is a lack of illustration on what is defined as Tawarruq. Is there any difference between a Tawarruq and Commodity Murabaha, which essentially is a 4 party transaction? The issue of interconditionality is adequately addressed in the ED but I would love to have seen more details related to products, such as for Islamic Credit Cards and Revolving Credit with a rebate structure (Ibra’) based on a floating rate financing. It mentions that the discount can be given based on certain benchmark agreed by the contracting parties. This opens the clause to various interpretation as it is without real detail.

I will look at the Hibah (Gift) ED but essentially, it is related to the Wadiah ED. Most of what’s covered under the Hibah ED is relevant to the Wadiah product, such as the discretionary Hibah issue and the giving of Hibah becoming a business practice (Urf Tijari) which can be construed as Riba (Usury). Wait for the posting.

Thank you for reading, hope everyone have an enjoyable holiday period ahead. Wasalam.