Posted on 01/02/2006 7:56:51 AM PST by quantim
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) A bank that has been offering special services for Muslims for two years has now formed a subsidiary to focus solely on the religious group.
The Ann Arbor-based University Bank has created University Islamic Financial Corp. to offer Muslims home financing, deposit accounts and Islamic mutual fund shares.
"The formation of the subsidiary allows us to have a financial institution which is 100 percent in compliance with the Muslim Shariah, the legal code of the Islamic religion," bank President and Chairman Stephen Lange Ranzini told The Ann Arbor News for a Saturday story.
Among the laws of Shariah is a ban against paying or receiving interest.
The bank's Islamic deposit accounts allow Muslims to open accounts where any profits are shared rather than paid as interest.
University Bank also offers a mortgage alternative loan transaction program or MALT which replaces a traditional home loan with a redeemable lease.
The bank holds the home in trust, and a home buyer makes monthly payments to that trust. Each rent payment includes a set amount of savings, which builds the buyer's equity in the home. When the savings account equals the home's original purchase price, the buyer owns it.
The mortgages are offered across the state, with 57 families in the Detroit area having such loans, and Ranzini said plans are to offer such mortgages nationwide.
Other banks also are targeting Muslims, said Tracey Mills, a spokeswoman for the American Bankers Association trade group.
"There have been other banks that have formed relationships with the Islamic community, developing lending products that aren't in violation with Islamic law," she said.
The Institute of Islamic Banking & Insurance, an independent Islamic finance academic and research group in London, shows that more than 250 Islamic banks around the world manage more than $200 billion.
Ranzini said University Islamic Financial Corp. will allow the University Bank to expand its capital base. He expects the bank, a subsidiary of the Ann Arbor-based University Bancorp financial holding company, will double its assets, which were listed at $56.5 million on Sept. 30.
He said the corporation was formed with $15.5 million raised through the sale of 40,000 shares of private stock.
The bank owns 80 percent of the corporation while the remaining 20 percent is held by Virtue Investors LLC, a group of private investors from Grand Rapids, Ranzini said.
You describe a Contract for deed sale. It is legal and at least in my part of KY quite common. It really preys upon people who can not get credit or don't qualify for bank loans. The owner/seller hope and pray the buyer defaults.
Well, they started moving in under Clinton, if not before. They really are building up all across America. It worries me.
And I am not ashamed to say so.
If it is treated as rent, I guess the "renters" have no mortgage interest deduction for income tax purposes.
The bank buys the property and then immediately sells it at a higher price. The "down payment" comes as the first payment.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1550602/posts?page=21#21
I don't know how the contract deals with sales and/or prepayments.
they're really not stupid enough to buy that are they. that would be like a mormon claiming wine and beer really isn't alcohol
Please, everybody relax. As a person with experience in the financial industry I can assure you that nothing extraordinary is going on here. There is nothing wrong with these financial vehicles even though they may look unfamiliar to you. Its kind of like the difference between a bank and a credit union, different legal structures but they both provide the same services, more or less. Also, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) monitors all 'banks' for suspicious activity.
The loans aren't really loans. They are just temporary shared asset disbursements
Oh, but there is. An Islamic invasion is permeating society at many levels. You think they'll vote republican or conservative? No, The Islamic Party coming to a poll near you!
Ever see a bank for Christians?
Me neither.
Guess the banking community is made up of the same idiots that make up Hollywood and the Democratic Party...........those who just choose to ignore the Christian nature of their own bloody country.
Idiots.
I don't think it is 'suspicious' that we are commenting on ... I think it is more like the long and varied trail of money that may end up in enemy hands that is our concern.
Mine, anyway.
I'm not the most pro-Muslim guy around, but I have no problem with private organizations encouraging home ownership.
Gee what a suprise....NOT.
"Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali AL-Madani is the first President of the Islamic Development Bank." ....and an alumni of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor:
http://www.isdb.org/english_docs/idb_home/Pres_CV.htm
"A knowledgeable Muslim will find it hard to integrate into a non- Islamic society of the United States," explained Muhammad al-Alahmari, a Saudi who is chairman of the Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that sends copies of the Koran to prisons and libraries."
http://www.copts.net/detail.asp?id=197
"A Saudi graduate student implicated last month in the FBI's terrorism probe gave money to a charity co-founded by jailed Ann Arbor Muslim leader Rabih Haddad, Justice Department officials said this week."
http://siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?ID=inthenews2403&Category=inthenews&Subcategory=0
"YPSILANTI, Mich. - A militant religious message is spread worldwide from this city outside Detroit by a group of Islamists with connections to Pittsburgh."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/specialreports/jihad/s_84622.html
So what? It's a free country, right? Of course, if non-Muslims decided to close out their accounts at this bank, that would be alright, too.
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