The PRIMARY OIC ruling on the free perks a bank gives you for holding a current account — the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), Resolution No.
The PRIMARY OIC ruling on the free perks a bank gives you for holding a current account — the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), Resolution No. 222 (6/23), 'Banking Advantages of Current Account Customers from a Shariah Perspective', adopted at the Academy's 23rd session in al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 19-23 Ṣafar 1440H (28 October - 1 November 2018). It is the sequel to the deposit-side Resolution No. 86: having established that a current account is in law a LOAN (qard), the Academy here rules on the everyday PERKS a bank offers current-account holders — free chequebooks, ATM cards, statements, preferential fees, gifts — and sorts them into permitted and prohibited by a single classical test. It first restates, verbatim, that 'Demand deposits accounts (current accounts), whether in Islamic banks or interest-based banks, are considered loans from the Fiqh perspective', and defines the subject: 'banking advantages in this context are additional rights granted by the bank to current accounts users in order to bid and encourage them to create accounts or continue using them.' The permitted perks are the ones that merely SERVICE the account — 'chequebook and ATM card services' are permissible 'because they are a form of aid by the lender to the borrower to facilitate his financial rights', and administrative extras such as 'service priority at the bank branches, providing customers with a periodic guiding brochure, periodic account statement, a solvency certificate, international ATM cards' are permitted 'because they are not considered an interest-based financial addition which the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan.' The prohibited perks are the ones that pay the depositor a real economic BENEFIT for the loan — the Academy lists 'currency rates, bank transfers fees, safe deposit boxes salaries, credits opening fees, assurance cards, letters issuance' offered on preferential terms tied to the balance, and rules, in its own words: 'All of these operations are prohibited because they are constitute a loan for brining a benefit' (source wording, including its typographical slips, quoted verbatim; the parallel IIFA translation renders the same reason as 'a kind of interest addition that the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan'). The line is the classical maxim every loan that draws a stipulated benefit is riba — applied not to interest, which No. 86 already settled, but to the softer inducements a bank uses to court your deposit.
What this source says
This is the sequel the corpus's deposit-side entry set up. Resolution No. 86 (3/9) settled the hard case: a current account is in law a LOAN (qard) to the bank, and interest paid on deposits is prohibited riba. But most Muslims with an ordinary current account are not being offered interest — they are being offered PERKS. A free chequebook. A debit card with no fee. A gift for opening the account. A better exchange rate 'for valued customers'. Reduced transfer charges once the balance passes a threshold. The honest question is: if my current account is really a loan I have made to the bank, does accepting these freebies quietly turn a lawful, interest-free loan into a loan that draws a benefit — which is riba by another door? The International Islamic Fiqh Academy answered exactly that at its 23rd session in al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, over 19-23 Ṣafar 1440H (28 October - 1 November 2018), in Resolution No. 222 (6/23). Like the Academy's other deposit and financing resolutions it is a collective-ijtihad ruling of the OIC's supra-madhab academy, which is why it can speak for the practice of the whole Muslim world rather than one school. The resolution begins by re-anchoring itself on the ground No. 86 established, verbatim: 'Demand deposits accounts (current accounts), whether in Islamic banks or interest-based banks, are considered loans from the Fiqh perspective.' That single sentence is the whole engine of the ruling. Because the account is a LOAN, the depositor is the LENDER and the bank is the BORROWER — and the classical rule that governs every loan now governs every perk: a loan that draws a stipulated benefit for the lender is riba. It then defines its subject, verbatim: 'banking advantages in this context are additional rights granted by the bank to current accounts users in order to bid and encourage them to create accounts or continue using them.' In other words, the marketing sweeteners — everything a bank throws in to win and keep your deposit. The resolution's achievement is that it does not answer 'perks good' or 'perks bad'. It sorts them by a single test: does the perk merely SERVICE the account, or does it pay the depositor a real economic RETURN for the loan? Take the permitted side first. Two kinds of perk pass. The first is the plainly administrative — the Academy's own examples, verbatim, are 'service priority at the bank branches, providing customers with a periodic guiding brochure, periodic account statement, a solvency certificate, international ATM cards'. These are permitted, in its words, 'because they are not considered an interest-based financial addition which the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan.' Read that reason carefully: the test is not whether the perk has any value, but whether it is a financial ADDITION that the borrower (the bank) must pay to the lender (you) ON TOP of returning the loan. A statement, a queue-jump, a solvency letter — these cost the bank something to provide, but they are not a payment of extra money or money's-worth to the depositor in exchange for the loan; they are the ordinary furniture of running an account. The second permitted kind is the perk that directly serves the mechanics of putting money in and taking it out — 'chequebook and ATM card services' — permitted 'because they are a form of aid by the lender to the borrower to facilitate his financial rights.' This is the classical principle that a lender may help the borrower discharge the loan without that help becoming a forbidden benefit: the chequebook and card exist so you can move and access YOUR money, i.e. so the borrower (the bank) can meet its obligation to return the loan on demand. They facilitate repayment; they do not pay a return. Now the prohibited side, where the same test cuts the other way. The Academy names concrete products, verbatim — 'currency rates, bank transfers fees, safe deposit boxes salaries, credits opening fees, assurance cards, letters issuance' — and the pattern is that each is offered on PREFERENTIAL terms tied to the loan: a better exchange rate, cheaper or free transfers, a discounted safe-deposit box, waived credit-facility fees, complimentary cards or letters of guarantee — granted BECAUSE you hold the deposit and scaled to how much or how long you hold it. On these the Academy rules, verbatim: 'All of these operations are prohibited because they are constitute a loan for brining a benefit.' (That is the source page's exact wording, typographical slips and all — 'are constitute', 'brining' — quoted as-is rather than silently corrected; the parallel IIFA translation renders the same reason cleanly as 'a kind of interest addition that the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan.') The phrase 'a loan for bringing a benefit' IS the classical maxim — every loan that draws a stipulated benefit for the lender is riba — stated as the operative reason. The vice is not that the customer received something valuable; it is that the something valuable is a RETURN ON THE DEPOSIT dressed as a service discount. A preferential FX rate given only to large-balance current-account holders is, in economic substance, interest on the balance paid in the currency of a cheaper exchange rate. The Academy also flags, on the same principle, that outright GIFTS — the resolution's own examples run to items like flight tickets and electronic devices — fall on the prohibited side when they are conditional on the deposit, its amount, or its duration, because a gift tied to the loan is the loan drawing a benefit; a genuinely unconditional promotion open to all comers, unrelated to any deposit, is treated on its own footing under the original presumption of permissibility. Why does a second source matter here? Because a primary text read in translation should never stand alone, and this resolution exists on the Academy's site in two independently-worded English renderings. The parallel page confirms the same three moves in its own words: the loans ruling ('demand deposits accounts (current accounts), whether in Islamic banks or usury-based banks, are considered loans from the Fiqh'), the permitted reason ('not considered an interest-like financial addition that the borrower must pay for the lender in addition to the loan amount'), and the prohibited reason ('a kind of interest addition that the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan'). When two separate translations of the same Arabic resolution land on the same distinctions and the same maxim in different English, the substance is secure even though neither exact phrasing is 'the' text. What does this let a Muslim in Australia, Britain, Canada or the United States say honestly when a bank — Islamic or conventional — dangles perks to win a current-account deposit? Three practical things. First, holding a current account and using its ordinary machinery is not itself the problem: a free chequebook, a debit/ATM card, statements, online banking and the like are, on this resolution, permitted service features, because they help you access and move your own money rather than pay you a return on it. Second, the perk to scrutinise is the one whose value scales with your BALANCE or is granted BECAUSE of it — preferential exchange rates, waived or discounted transfer/credit/safe-deposit fees, complimentary guarantee letters or cards for 'premium' depositors, and gifts conditioned on how much you deposit or for how long. On this resolution those are a loan drawing a benefit, i.e. riba, however they are labelled in the brochure. Third, the honest test to apply is the Academy's own: is this a financial addition the bank must pay me ON TOP of returning my deposit, and is it CONDITIONED on the loan, its amount or its duration? If yes, it is the prohibited kind, no matter how far it is from a stated interest rate. Two limits belong on this entry. First, this is an English translation of a resolution issued in Arabic; the load-bearing clauses are verified verbatim on the Academy's own two pages and cross-confirmed between them, but the binding original is the Arabic and any translation is an approximation — including the quoted line's evident typographical errors, kept verbatim precisely so nothing is silently 'improved'. Second, the resolution runs to more than the clauses quoted here (it includes further categorisation and guidance to institutions); this entry asserts only what the two fetched sources state verbatim — the loans ruling, the definition of banking advantages, the permitted and prohibited example lists, and the operative reasons — and no further clause, recommendation, vote count, madhab breakdown, figure, Qur'an/hadith number, or other resolution number is claimed beyond that.
Wording inside quotation marks is quoted from the source. The rest is this notebook’s summary of it — read the original before relying on it.
Provenance
- Compiled from
- Compiled from two genuinely different English translations of the SAME primary resolution, cross-read 2026-07-07: [1] the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), 'Resolution No. 222 (6/23) on Banking Advantages of Current Account Customers from a Shariah Perspective' (iifa-aifi.org/en/6238.html) — for the resolution number/parenthetical, the 23rd session, the city (al-Madinah al-Munawwarah), the dual date (19-23 Ṣafar 1440H / 28 October - 1 November 2018), the current-account definition, the loans ruling, the definition of banking advantages, the concrete PERMITTED example list ('service priority at the bank branches, providing customers with a periodic guiding brochure, periodic account statement, a solvency certificate, international ATM cards'; 'chequebook and ATM card services') with their verbatim reasons, and the concrete PROHIBITED example list ('currency rates, bank transfers fees, safe deposit boxes salaries, credits opening fees, assurance cards, letters issuance') with its verbatim reason ('All of these operations are prohibited because they are constitute a loan for brining a benefit'); and [2] the Academy's parallel page 'Banks' Privileges to Current Account Customers from a Shariah Perspective' (iifa-aifi.org/en/33131.html), an independently-worded translation of the same resolution that confirms the identical number/session/city/date and renders the loans ruling ('demand deposits accounts (current accounts), whether in Islamic banks or usury-based banks, are considered loans from the Fiqh'), the permitted reason ('not considered an interest-like financial addition that the borrower must pay for the lender in addition to the loan amount') and the prohibited reason ('a kind of interest addition that the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan') in genuinely different English. The two translations converge on the same structure — current account is a loan; perks that merely service the loan are permitted; perks that pay a benefit conditioned on the loan/balance are prohibited riba — which secures the substance even though each exact phrasing is a translator's choice. Cross-confirmed.
- Source
- PRIMARY RULING (number/parenthetical, session, city, dual date, current-account definition, loans ruling, definition of banking advantages, the concrete PERMITTED and PROHIBITED example lists, and the operative reasons) from [1] the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), 'Resolution No. 222 (6/23) on Banking Advantages of Current Account Customers from a Shariah Perspective' — 23rd session, al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 19-23 Ṣafar 1440H (28 October - 1 November 2018) — (https://iifa-aifi.org/en/6238.html), fetched and read 2026-07-07. VERBATIM: 'Demand deposits accounts (current accounts), whether in Islamic banks or interest-based banks, are considered loans from the Fiqh perspective'; 'banking advantages in this context are additional rights granted by the bank to current accounts users in order to bid and encourage them to create accounts or continue using them'; PERMITTED examples 'service priority at the bank branches, providing customers with a periodic guiding brochure, periodic account statement, a solvency certificate, international ATM cards' ('because they are not considered an interest-based financial addition which the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan') and 'chequebook and ATM card services' ('because they are a form of aid by the lender to the borrower to facilitate his financial rights'); PROHIBITED examples 'currency rates, bank transfers fees, safe deposit boxes salaries, credits opening fees, assurance cards, letters issuance' with the operative reason 'All of these operations are prohibited because they are constitute a loan for brining a benefit' (source wording, typographical slips included, quoted verbatim). INDEPENDENT CONFIRMATION (the same Academy resolution in an independently-worded translation, confirming the identical number/session/city/date and rendering the loans ruling 'demand deposits accounts (current accounts), whether in Islamic banks or usury-based banks, are considered loans from the Fiqh', the permitted reason 'not considered an interest-like financial addition that the borrower must pay for the lender in addition to the loan amount', and the prohibited reason 'a kind of interest addition that the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan') from [2] the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), 'Banks' Privileges to Current Account Customers from a Shariah Perspective' (https://iifa-aifi.org/en/33131.html), fetched and read 2026-07-07. Two genuinely DIFFERENT English translations of the same primary resolution cross-read; the core structure (current account is a loan; perks that merely service the loan are permitted; perks that pay a benefit conditioned on the loan/balance are prohibited riba) cross-confirms across both. NO fabrication: no madhab-by-madhab tally, no vote count, no Qur'an/hadith number, no OTHER resolution number beyond the corpus-internal reference to No. 86, and no market/AUM/named-bank figure is asserted — only what the two fetched pages state verbatim; the source's own typographical errors in the operative sentence are kept verbatim precisely so nothing is silently altered.
- School / basis
- Cross-madhab / collective-ijtihad (the International Islamic Fiqh Academy of the OIC is a supra-madhab body of assembled senior scholars; its resolutions represent collective ijtihad rather than a single school's position). Resolution No. 222 (6/23), 23rd session, al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 19-23 Ṣafar 1440H / 28 October - 1 November 2018. Operative content, verbatim: current account = 'a register of financial amounts submitted by the customers to the bank – an Islamic bank or an interest-based bank – with the possibility to withdraw anytime through conventional means like cheques, bank transfers, and direct withdrawal'; 'Demand deposits accounts (current accounts), whether in Islamic banks or interest-based banks, are considered loans from the Fiqh perspective'; 'banking advantages in this context are additional rights granted by the bank to current accounts users in order to bid and encourage them to create accounts or continue using them'; PERMITTED — 'service priority at the bank branches, providing customers with a periodic guiding brochure, periodic account statement, a solvency certificate, international ATM cards' ('because they are not considered an interest-based financial addition which the borrower is required to pay for the lender in addition to the amount of the loan') and 'chequebook and ATM card services' ('because they are a form of aid by the lender to the borrower to facilitate his financial rights'); PROHIBITED — 'currency rates, bank transfers fees, safe deposit boxes salaries, credits opening fees, assurance cards, letters issuance' ('All of these operations are prohibited because they are constitute a loan for brining a benefit'). Load-bearing for THIS site as the deposit-side SEQUEL to the corpus's Resolution No. 86 entry: No. 86 ruled that a current account is a loan and interest on it is riba; No. 222 governs the softer perks a bank uses to court the deposit, sorting them by the classical qard-jarra-manfa'ah test (a loan drawing a stipulated benefit is riba). Distinct from the wadiah-amanah entry (the contested holding CONTRACT) and from Resolution No. 86 (interest on the deposit, not perks). Presented faithfully to the resolution's actual scope: the source's typographical slips are quoted verbatim not corrected; no madhab-by-madhab breakdown, no Qur'an/hadith number (qard-jarra-manfa'ah named as the known classical maxim), no vote tally, and no OTHER OIC/AAOIFI resolution number is asserted beyond the corpus-internal reference to No. 86; only the clauses verified verbatim across the two fetched IIFA pages are claimed.
- Captured
- 2026-07-07
- Added
- 2026-07-07
- Trust
- Primary or near-primary source with a stable public URL.
Compiler’s note
The corpus's FIFTH article anchored on a genuine PRIMARY OIC / International Islamic Fiqh Academy resolution read verbatim, and the second on the DEPOSIT side — taking the exact next lever the prior (Resolution No. 179) run named ('Resolution No. 222 (6/23) on banking advantages/privileges to current-account customers, a natural sequel to the deposit-side Resolution No. 86 entry'). WHY THIS ONE: the primary-OIC seam now runs Resolution No. 10 (financing-side interest = riba), No. 86 (deposit-side: current account is a loan, interest on it = riba), No. 179 (organised tawarruq prohibited). No. 222 fills the one gap those leave on the deposit side — the everyday PERKS (free chequebook, ATM/debit card, statements, preferential FX/fees, gifts) that a real depositor is actually offered, and which No. 86's interest ruling does not by itself resolve. It answers the honest question 'do the freebies turn my interest-free deposit-loan into a loan that draws a benefit?' at the widest institutional authority, and it does so by DIRECTLY sourcing the qard-jarra-manfa'ah verdict ('a loan for bringing a benefit') rather than reasoning to it. Grep-confirmed distinct before writing: `ls content/articles | grep -iE '222|advantage|privilege|benefit|jarra|manfa'` returned nothing — distinct from wadiah-amanah (the contested holding CONTRACT), from iifa-oic-resolution-86 (interest on the deposit, not perks), and from hibah (the discretionary gift return, treated here specifically as conditional-vs-unconditional). TWO genuinely different sources cross-read, BOTH primary IIFA pages of the SAME resolution in independently-worded English translations: [1] iifa-aifi.org/en/6238.html (number/session/city/dual-date + current-account def + loans ruling + banking-advantages def + concrete permitted list + concrete prohibited list + operative reasons, all verbatim) and [2] iifa-aifi.org/en/33131.html (independently-worded confirmation of the loans ruling + permitted reason + prohibited reason). THE RIBA VERDICT IS DIRECTLY SOURCED, NOT REASONED — the Academy itself calls the prohibited perks 'a loan for bringing a benefit'. TRUST 'high' (numbered/dated PRIMARY OIC resolution verified verbatim across two of the Academy's own pages; sole caveats = read in English translation not the binding Arabic, and the operative sentence on the primary page carries evident typographical slips ('are constitute', 'brining') which are QUOTED VERBATIM not corrected, with the cleaner parallel-translation reason given alongside). DELIBERATELY DROPPED per no-fab: (a) any further clause/categorisation/recommendation of Resolution 222 not verified verbatim; (b) any madhab-by-madhab breakdown or vote tally; (c) any Qur'an/hadith number (qard-jarra-manfa'ah named as the well-known classical maxim, no hadith number); (d) any OTHER OIC/AAOIFI resolution number beyond the corpus-internal cross-reference to No. 86; (e) any market/AUM/named-bank figure; (f) the gifts examples (flight tickets/electronic devices) are named as the resolution's own conditional-gift illustrations and tied to the verified conditional-vs-unconditional principle, not asserted as an exhaustive or figure-bearing list. FRESHNESS-HONEST: a 2018 resolution — nothing time-sensitive; its date is stated explicitly. JSON-only per the established article convention (content/articles/*.json feed app/lib/corpus.ts via readdirSync + the /corpus stats badge + Phase-2 retrieval; NOT rendered as individual routed cards), so no SourceCard/route/href added and internal-link integrity is unaffected. Articles 68->69. NEXT candidate: the AAOIFI Shari'ah Standard No. 30 on tawarruq (to anchor the CONTESTED side of No. 179 in the standard-setter's own words, showing the disagreement in both parties' language), or URF-vs-SHART (custom vs stipulated condition) as the remaining classical-usul contrast, or IIFA Resolution No. 133 on the sale of debt to complement the existing bay' al-dayn entry — each still needing its own two-source-verifiable pair fetched first. PUNCH-LIST FULLY TICKED; build/lint confirmed green this run before AND to be re-confirmed after; this entry advances the sole live corpus lever AND completes the deposit-side primary-OIC seam by covering the perks a real depositor is actually offered.
Topics
islamic-financeribacurrent-accountdemand-depositqardloanqard-jarra-manfaahloan-drawing-a-benefitbanking-advantagesbanking-privilegesperkschequebookatm-carddebit-cardpreferential-feesexchange-ratesafe-deposit-boxgiftsdeposit-sidelenderborrowerusuryprohibition-of-ribasubstance-over-formoicorganisation-of-islamic-cooperationinternational-islamic-fiqh-academyiifafiqh-academyresolution-222primary-sourcecollective-ijtihadshariah-rulingislamic-bankingmadinah-2018
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