Range of UK firms feel benefit of fall in British currency
It is not just luxury shops in London that are gaining from the weak pound. Other firms for whom the falling rate of Sterling is a boost include:
The British Islamic mortgage lender Al Rayan Bank
One of Britain’s largest Islamic banks, Al Rayan Bank, has seen its expat property finance business more than double since the 2016 EU referendum.
“We believe that this is due to the bank’s more complete product range, improved distribution channels – particularly in the GCC – and the current favourable exchange rate for British expats looking to buy property in the UK,” the chief executive Sultan Choudhury tells The National.
Al Rayan Bank is the UK’s largest wholly Sharia-compliant retail bank. “We’ve been pioneering British Islamic banking since 2004,” it says on its website.
The bank says it has seen a huge increase in completions over the past year and that demand is accelerating this year.
It said in January the number of applications for its home purchase plans (HPPs) and buy to let purchase plans (BTLPP) reached an all-time high in 2016.
Demand, as measured by the volume of eligible enquiries to the bank, increased by 9 per cent in 2016 and has increased by 99 per cent in the past five years, “indicating that Islamic banking has become a preferred method of property financing for a significant number of people”, Al Rayan says.
Keith Leach, Al Rayan Bank’s chief commercial officer, adds: “There is still substantial room for growth in this market and we expect demand to continue to rise in the coming years.”
HPPs and BTLPPs are joint ownership agreements which do not involve interest. Al Rayan’s customers buy their properties together with the bank as partners.
Over time they acquire the bank’s share through a monthly acquisition payment, while paying rent to use the portion of the house that they do not yet own.
The increased demand for Islamic home finance is mirrored by an increase in the value of its Sharia-compliant savings, the bank says.
Last year the value of Islamic savings increased by 47 per cent compared with the previous year and by 449 per cent compared with 2012.
Al Rayan believes that a significant proportion of the increase has come from non-Muslim customers, estimating that 94 per cent of fixed-term deposit customers who joined the bank last year, and 26 per cent of all customers choosing to bank with the lender, are not Muslims.
This year growth has continued to accelerate.
Demand for HPPs and BTLPPs, as measured by the volume of eligible enquiries to the bank, was up by 19.5 per cent in January, compared with December 2016 and up by 13.2 per cent compared with January 2016, Al Rayan says.
At the same time the number of HPP and BTLPP completions increased by a staggering 227.6 per cent in January 2017, compared with January 2016
“The UK market for Sharia-compliant home finance … is growing at a rapid pace in 2017,” says Mr Leach.
“Over the past year Al Rayan Bank has reduced the rental rates on its home finance products to make them more affordable, at the same time we have improved internal processes to speed up customers’ waiting times from offer to completion,” he adds.
These factors, along with the weaker pound, and the increasing acceptance of Islamic banking in the UK, “have helped drive the recent growth in demand”, he says.
The VIP halal travel curator Salaam World
The premium halal travel sector in the United Kingdom has received a boost on the back of the weak pound, says Simon Dalton, the managing partner of Salaam World, a London-based VIP travel service for Muslims.
“We have seen a large increase from GCC nationals requesting summer itineraries for London, including luxury shopping adventures, bespoke halal-tasting menus and private dining rooms at top Michelin-starred restaurants,” he tells The National.
“We’re also seeing more experiential travel requests with members wanting more immersive activities for them and their children.”
The currency comparison site Sparimondo.com
Adam Race founded his currency comparison website Sparimondo.com this year “to try and find locations where the pound, which is currently suffering around the world, is actually not suffering so badly”.
“The flip side of that has been that the devaluing pound has made the United Kingdom one of the most searched for locations,” he says.
Sparimondo.com allows would-be travellers to see where they get most bang for their buck, or quid in this case, factoring in currency fluctuations globally. “It’s been a really interesting time, we’re monitoring traffic very closely in an attempt to track patterns and to decide which area to focus on next and we have started to see some very intriguing trends,” Mr Race tells The National.
“We have noticed that a majority sector of our traffic has come from the Arabian Gulf states.
“This is significant because we do not currently serve the AED on our platform as we are in the early stages of our development. However, due to the power of the USD in the region, we’ve seen that the bulk of searches have come via this currency.
“Since Brexit, we’ve seen a 22 per cent increase in the AED against the GBP.
“What we’re keen to exploit is that currently each year Saudi Arabians are spending £14 billion a year in the UK, not only in London, but Manchester [in north-east England] and Edinburgh [in Scotland] and our platform is allowing them to explore destinations that they might not have naturally thought of,” says Mr Race.
“We will continue to monitor global spending and look to target these affluent regions and to continue to grow our brand.”
* Alicia Buller
