Islamic Accounts for Online Financial Trading

The definition of an Islamic account

Both currencies and commodities are traded in the spot market for 24 hours. At 5:00 pm New York time, all open positions are rolled over for the next 24 hours and the daily interest is added to the company’s accounts every 24 hours. The company can then either pay the interest or charge the client’s account to cover the fees.

With an Islamic account we make sure that there is no Riba in any form throughout the duration of the contract. In the currency market, if you don’t close the trade before 5:00 pm New York time, all open trades will be automatically rolled over, which normally poses a problem for those following Islamic law, due to the possibly usurious interest charged for the rollover.  However with an eToro Islamic account, all your positions will be closed at 5:00 pm (10:00 pm UST) and you can then reopen them immediately in order to avoid all interest problems and trade according to Islamic Sharia law. If the client chooses to reopen a trade immediately, the client will not pay any usurious interest.

There’s no doubt that currency trading is one of the most difficult dilemmas in Islamic jurisprudence (Faqih). On the one hand, it requires the simultaneous exchange of currencies,  which makes it a kind of hand to hand exchange. On the other hand, contemporary scholars consider the record of money transferred to or from a bank account as delivery. To resolve the issue, several decisions and fatwas have been issued. According to these decrees, the conditions for trading currency are:

• Immediate buying and selling without delay
• The currencies needs to be transferred from the account of the seller to that of the buyer and vice versa
• The cost of the trade should be paid without delay
• No interest on trades. In the case that there is any usurious interest, the contract will be invalid, void and Haram.

The solution

One can either trade as much as his money permits, or take a loan from broker on the condition that the broker doesn’t receive any usurious interest on the loan.

The benefits of an eToro Islamic account

• No interest on contracts lasting longer than 24 hours -  zero rollover interest consistently
• eToro doesn’t take any additional rollover commissions for contracts lasting longer than 24 hours
• We do not charge any commissions or fees for account management, our revenues come strictly from spreads (the difference between the Ask and the Bid prices of a currency pair)
• An eToro Islamic account provides you with interest-free leverage

How to open an eToro Islamic account?

• Open a real account in eToro and install the platform
• Fund it  ($50 min)
• Send the documents necessary to change your account to Islamic one
• One of our representatives will be available to describe the benefits of an Islamic account and its types