Shariah compliance

Remember all the hullabaloo over remarks made by Archbishop Rowan Williams last February with regards to Shariaah law? He was merely saying that Muslims should be able to choose whether to have matters such as marital disputes dealt with under shariah law or the British legal system. He also said that giving shariah official status in the UK would help maintain social cohesion because some Muslims do not relate to the British legal system. His statements caused an uproar in the press in UK.

Well, Shariah implementation has already taken place in the banking sector here. Anyone can open a shariah approved account in Lloyds TSB,not just moslem. Lloyds is one of the high street banks in UK. They have the facility where one could issue a directive to Lloyds to have all one's direct debit & standing order transactions, from other banks transferred to the islamic account.

Meanwhile, If you know anyone who will be coming to uk to study, please advice them to open HSBC islamic Amanah account back home in Malaysia. A standing order to transfer some amount of money every month from one's salary could be done so that one could use any HSBC teller machines in UK to withdraw when necessary, esp when running out of scholarship money (as back up) or whenever feels like wanting to go for a shopping spree (easter holiday now wink! wink!...emm nak jalan ke mana ya)

This is very convenient since HSBC is all over UK, in fact all over the world. You would normally be charged RM 5, plus currency exchange rate for each transaction(urusniaga) when withdrawing some money via HSBC ATM teller machines here in UK, from your account back home.

One interesting fact about HSBC is it offers islamic mortgage. See here for the news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3035292.stm