Bahraini Shariah Authority Gives Halal Accreditation to Californian Blockchain Company “Stellar”

Bahrain’s Shariah Review Bureau (SRB), an Islamic advisory firm licensed by the country’s Central Bank, certified Stellar, a Californian distributed ledger protocol, to become the first blockchain entity to receive Sharia compliance certification in the money transfer and asset tokenisation space. Moreover, the certification extends to applications and usages of lumens. 

“For the blockchain technology there was no issue, the main thing we needed to consider was the use of the underlying cryptocurrency,” says Mansoor Ahmed, SRB’s assistant general manager.

In partnership with SRB, this certification will help grow the Stellar ecosystem in regions where financial services require compliance with Islamic financing principles, according to Stellar's statement. In explanation, Islamic financial institutions in the Arabian Gulf like Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and parts of Southeast Asia like Indonesia and Malaysia will now be able to integrate Stellar technology in their Sharia-compliant product and service offerings. "This is a big advancement for the Stellar network given that these regions are endpoints of popular foreign worker remittance corridors," adds the statement.

Stellar’s Director of Partnerships Lisa Nestor has been exploring deals with financial firms in the Gulf region and seeking sharia-compliance certification “We have been looking to work with companies that facilitate remittances, including in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. It’s a huge market,” Nestor says.