Finova has announced it will power the launch of Offa’s new Sharia-compliant home purchase plan (HPP).

The HPP follows Islamic finance principles of co-ownership-with-leasing to allow customers to gradually acquire full ownership of a property instead of paying interest.

Offa said that this process requires many providers to manage dynamic ownerships shares, profit-based returns and alternative affordability checks and this is something that many legacy origination systems can’t handle easily.

The Sharia-compliant finance provider chose Finova’s configurable infrastructure to support the launch of its HPP, as it is designed to deliver near real-time credit decisions, depending upon credit rating and risk criteria.

The cloud-based savings and originations technology provider’s configurable rules engine allowed Offa to build and launch the product on its platform without overhauling its core infrastructure.

Product rules, income multiples, gifted equity and family-supported affordability models were all configured within the platform’s decisioning framework, resulting in a fast launch and strong underwriting controls.

Customer success director at Finova, Ray Barry, said: "Offa’s new product launch highlights the flexibility modern infrastructure must deliver in the current era of finance. Islamic finance structures introduce genuine complexity, from co-ownership modelling to alternative profit calculations, but those requirements should not slow innovation or speed to market.

"As our platform is fully configurable, Offa was able to design a Sharia-compliant residential proposition and bring it to market quickly, without compromising on automation, speed or risk control."

Chief commercial officer and managing director of home finance at Offa, Sagheer Malik, added: "We are modernising Islamic home finance by combining faith-based principles with the speed and paperless experience customers expect from mainstream finance providers. Finova’s technology allowed us to configure a highly specialised product within a scalable, automated framework, supporting fast decisions and a seamless customer journey."

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