Two businesses have announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership to offer Sharia-compliant mortgage alternatives.

The partnership is designed to cater for the growing number of expats looking to purchase property in the UK.

deVere Mortgages is working with Al Rayan Bank – the UK’s largest Islamic retail bank – after recording a sharp increase in mortgage enquiries from expats since June’s EU referendum, the majority of which have come from people living in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.

“We have seen growing demand from our Group’s 80,000 clients around the world for Sharia-compliant mortgages,” says Mike Coady, managing director of deVere.

He explains: “Being an Islamic Bank, Al Rayan Bank’s home finance does not involve interest – which is prohibited in Islam.” 

“Additionally they do not charge arbitrary fees to customers, meaning that up-front costs tend to be significantly lower than with many conventional banks.” 

“Also they do not automatically assume that those living overseas are ‘high risk’ as many other banks do; and they don’t insist on clients being employed by large multinationals.”

Sultan Choudhury, chief executive of Al Rayan, added: “deVere Mortgages will help us to reach an even wider group of people who are looking for ethical, Sharia compliant home and property finance.”

“We will focus in particular on British expats who, for a variety of reasons, can find it difficult to obtain home finance in the UK whilst they are working overseas.” 

“We identified the expat market as an underserved sector some time ago, targeting resource towards it accordingly. As a result we have experienced significant growth in this area of our business.”