By Andrei Skvarsky.
Multinational bank Standard Chartered’s innovation-focused investment unit SC Ventures has made what it called a “strategic” investment in British sharia-compliant financial technology company Algbra.
Statements from SC Ventures and Algbra that announced the investment did not provide any details or disclose the terms of the deal.
But both statements quoted Algbra chief executive Zeiad Idris as saying the project represented the two companies’ “commitment to go beyond the UK to serve communities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East”.
Sustainable finance platform Shoal, run by London-based company Shoal Limited, is going to partner with Algbra on behalf of SC Ventures under the terms of the deal, according to the statements.
Both statements claim that Algbra, which commits itself to adherence to sustainable finance, is the first sharia-compliant fintech to be certified by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an electronic money institution.
Algbra’s advisers include Philip Hammond, a former British finance, foreign and defence minister, who today sits on the advisory board of British digital bank OakNorth.