Financial Intermediation, Fintech and Shariah Compliance
This chapter examines how fintech-led financial intermediation would help to solve some key Shari‘ah issues faced by traditional financial intermediation led by banks. Financial intermediation based only on interest-rate mechanisms has obvious limitations as it hampers both investments and employment. The chapter shows that fintech-led financial intermediation would lead to better Shari‘ah compliance and address the issue of financial inclusion as well as better financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) who have hitherto been unable to access mainstream financial market.