The Art of RF (Riba-Free) Islamic Banking and Finance: Tools and Techniques for Community-Based Banking, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 19 RF Banking: A New Banking Brand for the Twenty-First Century

As we journey into a new century, the dream is to popularize the RF banking brand and the RF financing methods using well-trained and dedicated RF bankers, branding experts, and media specialists. Judgment of a person, a manager, an investor, a banker, a board of directors, a politician, or a community leader cannot be regulated by a government decree or a set of laws. Judgment is personal and depends on the prevailing culture. Making a judgment depends on the way people were raised by their parents, their value system, and their deep-seated belief that a higher authority—a much higher authority than government regulations and laws—is watching over them.

The RF banking brand has been tested in the United States since 1987 at American Finance House (LARIBA), since 1994 at LARIBA Bank of Kazakhstan (before it was sold in 2006 due to government request to drastically increase capital) and at LARIBA Misr (in Egypt from 2004 until 2010) with great success and a proven track record. Later on in the United States, we branched out to test it on community banking operations, to see, first, whether it could be implemented and, second (and most importantly), whether the consumers in a small, conservative city like Whittier, California, since 2003 and later in Richardson (North Dallas), Texas, since 2011 would accept it. We are very pleased to report that the principles of RF banking and finance were accepted and proven ...