Maybank and Muslim Pro Launch Amanah Pro, a Sharia-Compliant Savings App Targeting the European EEA Market
Maybank, one of Southeast Asia's largest banking groups, and Muslim Pro, the world's most-downloaded Islamic lifestyle app, have jointly launched Amanah Pro — a Sharia-compliant (i.e., structured in accordance with Islamic law, which prohibits charging or paying interest) digital savings product aimed at the European market. The launch coincides with Currenxie's separate entry into the European Economic Area (EEA) with a multi-country, multi-currency business account targeting SMEs engaged in cross-border trade, particularly between Europe and Asia-Pacific. Amanah Pro is positioned to fill a gap in Islamic finance retail provision across Europe, where Muslim populations remain underserved by conventional savings products that rely on interest-bearing structures prohibited under Sharia. The product enters a European fintech landscape already crowded with digital challenger banks but with few dedicated Islamic finance offerings at consumer scale. For banking and finance lawyers, the launch raises structuring questions around how Sharia-compliant deposit products are regulated within the EEA's existing prudential and consumer protection frameworks — including whether national regulators treat profit-sharing return structures as interest equivalents for disclosure and conduct purposes.
Why this matters
Islamic finance in Europe remains a structurally underserved market, and the entry of a major Southeast Asian bank through a fintech partnership signals growing commercial interest in closing that gap. The regulatory challenge is material: EEA banking regulation — including the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) and national conduct-of-business rules — was not designed with Sharia-compliant profit-sharing structures in mind, creating ambiguity around how returns are characterised and disclosed. This creates advisory work for banking lawyers on regulatory licensing, product approval, and consumer disclosure compliance in multiple EEA jurisdictions. The fintech distribution model — partnering with an app rather than building a branch network — also activates payment services and e-money regulation under the Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
On the Ground
A trainee on a matter like this would help draft a regulatory filing checklist mapping the product's features against EEA banking and payment services requirements in each target jurisdiction, and would assist with reviewing the terms and conditions of the savings product against consumer protection disclosure obligations. They might also be asked to coordinate local counsel opinion letters on the characterisation of profit-sharing returns under national tax and banking law.
Interview prep
Soundbite
European Islamic finance is underserved — fintech partnerships are the fastest route to market but bring multi-jurisdiction regulatory complexity.
Question you might get
“What regulatory approvals would a Sharia-compliant digital savings product need to obtain before launching across multiple EEA countries, and how does the profit-sharing structure interact with existing EU consumer protection disclosure rules?”
Full answer
Maybank and Muslim Pro have launched Amanah Pro, a Sharia-compliant digital savings product targeting European Muslim consumers, entering a market with few dedicated Islamic finance offerings at scale. For banking lawyers, the challenge is fitting a profit-sharing return structure — which avoids interest as required by Sharia law — into an EEA regulatory framework built around conventional interest-bearing deposit products. This creates immediate questions around how returns are disclosed under consumer protection rules and how the product is authorised under banking and e-money licensing regimes across multiple EEA member states. The trend reflects a broader move by Asian financial institutions to export Islamic finance capabilities into Western markets where demand exists but local supply is thin — a structural gap that creates sustained regulatory and structuring advisory work.
My notes
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