There are many Forex and Binary Option brokers today that provide their traders with the option of opening an Islamic Account. In order to understand how these accounts work, one must first understand the principles of sharia (Islamic law) and how it applies to compliant banking and finance.

Sharia laws prohibit acceptance of specific interest or fees for loans of money (known as riba, or usury), whether the payment is fixed or floating.

As of 2009, there were over 300 banks and 250 mutual funds around the world complying with Islamic principles. As of 2014, sharia compliant financial institutions represented approximately 1% of total world assets totaling close to $2 trillion in funds. Not all Muslims follow Sharia laws. According to accounting firm, Ernst & Young, Islamic Banking makes up only a fraction of the banking assets of Muslims, but it has been growing at an annual rate of 17.6% between 2009 and 2013, faster than banking assets as a whole and it is projected to grow by an average of 19.7% a year up until 2018.

Islamic banking is able to make money by keeping within Sharia frameworks. Unlike conventional banking, Islam forbids simply lending out money at interest, so specific Islamic rules have been created on transactions in order to prevent this from happening. The basic principle of Islamic banking is based on risk-sharing which is a component of trade rather than risk-transfer which is seen in conventional banking. As such Islamic banking employs concepts such as profit sharing, safekeeping , joint venture, cost plus and leasing.

Islamic Brokerage Accounts

Under normal trading conditions, trades in commodities and currencies are executed in the spot market for 24 hours. At 5:00 pm New York time, all open positions are rolled over for the next 24 hours and the daily interest is added to the company’s accounts every 24 hours. The brokerage company can then either pay the interest or charge the client’s account to cover what is considered rollover fees. For traders who hold positions overnight, rollovers can have a significant impact on an account’s bottom line.