Al Rayan Bank PLC （مصرف الريان formerly known as British Islamic Bank) is a commercial bank in the United Kingdom established in August 2004 to provide Sharia compliant financial services products to customers of any faith. The bank serves its Premier and commercial customers through its account manager located in London. Retail customers are served through the bank's digital banking and telephone banking services.

The bank welcomes people of all faiths and is popular with many non-Muslims who are looking for an ethical alternative to traditional banking.

The bank has a Sharia department and an independent Sharia Supervisory Board to ensure that its products comply with Islamic finance principles.

Al Rayan Bank serves 80,000 clients as of 2020.

History

Islamic Bank UK was established by a group of investors from the Middle East with the aim of capitalising on the growing Shariah compliant financial services market in the UK. In July 2002, advisers and advisers were engaged to confirm whether this type of bank was needed and whether it would be accepted by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

They invited potential investors, mainly from the Persian Gulf, who put together a private placement document that enabled the company to raise £14 million in start-up capital in early 2003. During the same period, its first Managing Director, Michael Hanlon, was hired. Later in the same year, a draft business plan was presented and a formal application was submitted to the FSA.

By August 2004, the FSA had granted the bank a mandate, which subsequently led to the opening of the British Islamic Bank to the public.

Giles Cunningham is the current CEO of Al Rayan Bank; he joined the bank in April 2021.

In 2022, the bank acquired its new headquarters at 4 Stratford Square in the West End. This Grade II Protected Mansion is home to the Bank's Board of Directors, Administration, Commercial Division and Senior Banking Division.

Macroeconomic Conditions

Like all Financial Institution Groups, the Bank was first adversely affected by the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis and subsequently by persistently weak macroeconomic conditions. Nonetheless, this IBB continued to grow and reached the highest level of retail asset financing and deposit balances in its history in 2012.

Masraf Al Rayan Acquires British Islamic Bank

On January 16, 2014, IBB confirmed that its new parent company is Masraf Al Rayan, one of the largest Islamic banks in the world.

In December 2014, British Islamic Bank officially changed its name to Al Rayan Bank PLC to reflect its status as part of the Masraf Al Rayan (MAR) group of companies.

Rapid growth

In 2016, Al Rayan Bank was ranked as the third fastest growing bank in the UK by the'Bank Rankings 2017 'published by Searchline Publishing, which provides a complete financial analysis of all 155 UK registered banks. Commercial property financing grew by 44% to £396.5m in 2016, making it the fastest growing element of Al Rayan Bank's property portfolio. This was followed by 2017, when the bank posted a record pre-tax profit of £8.2m and announced that it had more than 77,000 clients.

In November 2017, the global credit agency Moody's awarded Al Rayan Bank an Aa3 deposit rating, making Al Rayan Bank the only British Islamic bank to receive an official rating. Later that month, the bank's former CEO, Sultan Choudhury, was awarded an OBE by His Royal Highness Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, for his services to Islamic finance.

NEW STRATEGY

In 2022, the bank announced its intention to become a Financial Institution Group focused on premier banking and real estate (primarily high-value residential investments) to provide viable, resilient, Sharia-compliant businesses. Al Rayan Bank said its existing retail banking business will be retained, but will not be a major focus in the future.

This change in strategy is one of the reasons the bank is posting record profits in 2022.