Sharia Board Rulings — Miscellaneous Matters

• Cash surpluses in a teller's till are held in trust for customers for a period set by management, then transferred to the Sharia-violations fund and paid out if the owner appears.
• A commission on safe-deposit visits beyond two per month is approved, and must be displayed in the banking halls.
• The purpose of an incoming or outgoing remittance must be lawful; incoming remittances are converted at the rate on the day of hand-over.
• The cash-delivery service and its service and cancellation commissions are approved, as are commissions on POS purchases, call-centre banking, property-document retrieval and renewing external powers of attorney.

• Late-payment penalties may not be taken and may not be claimed in court — only actual costs paid to third parties. A court-ordered penalty for a vexatious claim, however, is compensation for the delay the debtor caused and may be taken.
• An Islamic bank may not pay statutory interest: Legislative Decree 35 of 2005 bars Islamic banks from dealing in interest, whether received or paid.
• Advertising must not contravene Sharia in appearance or content, must describe products truthfully, must keep any image of a woman modest, must not use Qur'anic verses or Prophetic hadith, must not disparage competitors, and should use correct Arabic.
• Safe-deposit leases renew automatically for the full term; the Board set out how rent is treated on early termination, non-renewal and on the death of a holder, and how cash security is held.

The full Arabic text of every question and ruling is published on the Arabic version of this page. The signed original is below.