The first Muslim bank is opened in Ufa

The first Muslim bank is opened today, at the end of the year, in the capital of Bashkortostan. Its offices, the principles of work and financial services, which fully meet the Islamic requirements, function on the base of one of the most ordinary commercial banks. The bank's office is working in the test mode during already a month.

The main difference of the Muslim bank fr om other crediting models is the refusal fr om the interest percent and the matter is that Koran prohibits to take money for the use of credits - the most usual way of money earning by ordinary credit organizations. The Muslim banks work on other principles. They register every deal as an investment and, correspondingly, have their own share in the future profits of their clients. At that the Muslim bank don't credit gaming industry, production of alcohol and tobacco as well as the agrarians, specializing in pork processing.

The deputy chairman of the National Bank RB Marat Kashapov called the fact that such bank was opened in Bashkiria, wh ere Muslims made up a half of local population, quite predictable and logical.

Bashkortostan is not the first region, wh ere such banks function and Muslim banks already work, for example, in Dagestan and Tatarstan. Similar office works in Nizhniy Novgorod but it is still too difficult to start talking about wide spreading of Muslim banks in Russia now. At present time the Russian legislation doesn't yet possess the normative base, which would define the specific requirements to functioning of such banks. Another problem is that the majority of citizens don't yet understand the essence of the Islamic banking. Representatives of Muslim clergy help the Islamic bankers in "national enlightenment". The first deputy chairman of the Clerical Muslim Dept RB Aup-hazrat says that the mullahs make up everything possible to let people understand that it is necessary to observe the religious principles not just in their everyday life but in their financial deeds too.

At that it is worth mentioning that there are many opponents to appearance of Muslim banks in Russia and in their opinion the elements of hostile takeover can be easily found in the Islamic banking, besides, their quite specific financial products look more complicated than the traditional ones. The adherents of the Muslim banking talk about higher reliability of the Muslim banks' assets, since the material base stands behind every deal here.