Jakarta. Qazwa Mitra Hasanah, an Indonesia-based shariah peer-to-peer lending platform, recently secured a fintech license from the Financial Services Authority, or OJK, the company announced in a statement.

This makes Qazwa one of the five OJK-licensed shariah P2P lending companies in Indonesia. 

Qazwa founder and chief executive officer Dikry Paren said OJK already registered the platform within its system in 2019. Since then, Qazwa became among the pioneers of Indonesia’s shariah P2P lending.

“The recent licensing marks a milestone for Qazwa in empowering Indonesia’s shariah fintech ecosystem,” Dikry, who is also an alumnus of the Economics and Business Faculty at the University of Indonesia, said.

Qazwa focuses on bridging loans for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) — the backbone of Indonesia’s economy. According to Qazwa’s official website, the platform has financed about 1,929 MSME-run projects thus far. 

The financing has also gone to MSMEs in sectors such as agribusiness, property, trades for exports among others. 

Dikry expressed Qazwa’s commitment to implement shariah values —namely fairness and transparency— in its practices. And this includes giving lenders the flexibility to select their potential borrowers by going through the MSME profiles.

Growing Potential

Iqbal Ramadhan, a representative of Qazwa's holding company, revealed that sharia banking only held 6.5 percent market share in the banking industry. Nonetheless, the number of shariah fintech users has been increasing at a fast pace in the past few years, in line with the growing awareness of the middle-class Muslims in Indonesia. 

“The universal Islamic finance principles, along with the ease of use of digital applications, are seeing very positive responses from the middle-class Muslims,” Iqbal, who studied finance at the University of Queensland and Manchester University, said.

Iqbal also projected that Indonesia would become one of the global hubs for Islamic economy. Considering that Indonesia is home to the world’s largest middle-class Muslim population. 

Not only are they tech-savvy, the middle-class Muslims highly depend on technology in their daily lives, according to Iqbal — who also formerly worked at consulting giant Deloitte.

“Qazwa responds to this challenge by presenting a shariah fintech as part of the larger shariah fintech ecosystem, which encompasses digital banks, e-payment, e-investment, insurtech, e-commerce among others that run its businesses on Islamic principles,” Iqbal said.

Going forward, Qazwa will ramp up its financing capacity by teaming up with various financial institutions and capital venture firms both at home and abroad.