Business and Dealings

Accepting payment from financial institutions

Q: We have a company selling computers with Muslim and non-Muslim customers.

Some customers require financing/loans (which comes with interest) through third party financing institutions to buy the equipment from us.

Firstly, is it permissible for us to accept the payment from the financial institution on their behalf? We are not engaging in interest but we have to be registered as an authorized supplier with the institution.

Secondly, as some Muslims also tend to go through the same system, we want to provide an in-house interest-free financing facility for our Muslim customers only so that they do not have to pay interest and get a short-term facility on their purchase from us. Can we make the credit price higher than the cash price? For example, if R100 is the cash price, can we charge R125 for credit term over 6 monthly instalments?

Selling R5 airtime for R6

Q: At my work place, we sell airtime from machines. Because of the very low profit margin, my employer wants to, for example, sell the R5 at R6 and increase the other denominations accordingly. Will this be permissible according to Shari’ah?

Signing conditions to approve the loan

Q: A certain person owns a business and is the landlord at the same time. He decides to sell the business and lease out the property to the person who bought his business. The bank is loaning the buyer the money to purchase the business. The bank requests that the seller of the business (who is also the landlord) sign a document in which he agrees that if the purchaser of the business defaults, then the bank has the right to take over the lease (in other words, they will continue to pay the landlord rent until they find someone to purchase the business from them).

Is it permissible for the seller of the business to sign this agreement with the bank?