IBF Net Group Wins Laurels Again at GIFA

The trail-blazing performance of the IBF Net Group has been recognized by the Global Islamic Finance Awards program once again. It was the recipient of the GIFA Championship Award (Islamic Digital Solutions) 2022 at a shining ceremony held this week in Djibouti. Hosted by His Excellency Ismail Omar Guelleh, President of the Republic of Djibouti and the Central Bank of Djibouti, the 12th GIFA Programme included the Global Islamic Finance Summit (GIFS) and the launching of the Global Islamic Finance Report 2022. This year’s recognition comes on the heels of the award conferred on IBFNET by GIFA as the Best Emerging Islamic Fintech Platform in 2021.

The GIFA Programme 2022 instituted His Excellency Abiy Ahmed Ali, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia as a GIFA Laureate who was also the Chief Guest of the ceremony. The international event was well attended with ambassadors from 26 countries, senior ministers, members of the cabinet, multilateral institutions, and local & international institutions and individuals.

Scaling new heights from building a minitature Islamic economy as a network on the blockchain to the maiden Islamic metaverse, the IBF Net Group added several platforms and entities to its portfolio during the year 2021–22. It established Pt. IBF Net Indonesia as a fully owned e-commerce company as well as the Yayasan Syabakah Amal Islami (Islamic Business Network Foundation) in Jakarta to undertake cutting-edge research in emerging technologies like metaverse. In partnership with Ethis Global it also set up a joint venture, Islamic Value Analytics PLT in Malaysia to provide impact rating services, when measured from the standpoint of both the goals (maqasid) of Shariah and the SDGs.

According to Mohammed Alim, CEO of IBF Net Group, the following platforms are currently operational:

• Benevolence: An integrated platform for donation (sadaqah) of funds as well as efforts through volunteering
• Excellence: An e-learning platform offering courses in multiple IBF areas — zakat, awqaf, microfinance, fintech, halal business — at multiple levels in multiple languages.
• Conference: A knowledge resource platform with articles by reputed scholars, presentations at webinars & conferences, blogs and discussions @ e-forums.
• Confluence: A platform for exchange of impact tokens
• Islamic Value Analytics: A platform for measurement and rating of impact
• Credence: A platform for converting documents, Shariah-legal opinions, certificates into digital non-fungible assets for preservation
• Affluence: A platform for sale and purchase of digital assets both on the basis of stipulated price and price discovery through auction
• Microfinance: Integrated with Affluence, the platform provides for micro-borrowing without any benefit to lender in the spirit of qard-al-hasan backed by collateral to mitigate default risk.

IBF Net Group is currently engaged in developing an Islamic metaverse in two specific areas: e-learning and e-commerce with active support from the Singapore-based Algorand Foundation. “In a novel experiment, we are seeking to disrupt the elearning and publishing sector using NFTs and the immersive technologies. The academia and the researcher community have so far, shown a lot of excitement about and positive response to this initiative”, says Mohammed Alim.