Bringing Interest-Free Student Loans to Canada

Bismillah.

Anybody who is going to University will tell you how difficult it is to manage expenses (unless your parents are filthy rich). For Muslims, it’s even more difficult since we cannot accept loans or contracts that have interest in them. Here’s a potential solution:

Inspired by emails sent by Muslim brothers/sisters who wanted to avoid haram and get out of interest-based loans, we decided that it is about time someone started showing the Canadian community benefits of interest-free banking by using student loans as a starting point. Being involved in the RBC Challenge as part of our Masters program gave us a great channel to push this idea forward.

We are trying to figure out a business model that is completely interest-free and at the same time provides a win-win situation. There are still a number of kinks to figure out and that is why getting feedback from the community is so important. The survey results will help us immensely in putting together a value proposition for RBC.

If implemented, this product will help students acquire student-loans that have no interest associated with them. This will especially help students who are religiously-averse to dealing in interest transactions.

Please contribute your opinions by filling out this 10-Question survey and sharing it with as many people as possible (it should about 5 minutes). We hope to start compiling survey results by November 15th:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=BhHVpCmtPNWnp5_2f4waWnwQ_3d_3d

Please fill in the survey, it takes at most five minutes, in sha Allah.

Remember that, “whosoever intercedes for a good cause, will have the reward thereof.” [Nisa:85]