Let’s Build a Gold Saving Platform for the Global Muslim Community
We’re calling on product builders, engineers, fintech founders, designers, and dreamers.
If you've ever wanted to ship a product that uplifts the Ummah, this is your chance.
We're sharing a startup idea we believe could serve millions of Muslims across the world—and we want you to help make it real. Sign up at Ummah to join our online community. We'll invite you into a private builders' group chat where like-minded builders and supporters are ready to co-create, refine, and ship this to market. This is not a a job, this is your startup—co-owned and created by Tech Waqf Initiative.
The Problem
Imagine a young Muslim in Cairo saving for her Hajj. A merchant in Lagos trying to hedge against currency collapse. A family in Jakarta watching the value of their savings slowly erode. Across the Muslim world, 2 billion people face a simple but urgent problem: how to protect their earnings in a way that is ethical, inflation-resistant, and aligned with Islamic values.
Fiat currencies are weakening. Inflation is relentless.
Holding physical gold—long respected in Islamic tradition as dinar and dirham—seems like a solution. But storing gold is impractical, hard to liquidate, and risky without infrastructure. Muslims are left with no scalable, daily-use alternative that protects their wealth and their principles.
The Solution
We propose a gold-backed saving and payment platform, built for the global Muslim community.
Inspired by Kinesis and Glint, but tailored for the Muslim market, this mobile-first platform allows users to:
Buy and store physical gold (starting as low as 0.01 gram), backed by audited, insured vaults
Spend gold digitally through QR or card payments
Send gold to friends and family instantly
Save toward goals like Hajj, education, or charity—Zakat integration included
Everything is built to be Shariah-compliant—no interest, no speculative assets, no hidden fees. Just real, ethical money for the real world.
Why Now
This couldn’t have worked five years ago. But the stars have aligned today.
Fintech adoption is booming in OIC countries—from mobile wallets in Egypt to QR payments in Indonesia.
Gold is rising again as a hedge against fiat instability.
Shariah-compliant finance is growing rapidly, expected to surpass $3.7 trillion by 2025.
Infrastructure exists—vaulting, KYC, stablecoin rails, and embedded finance APIs are all easier to plug in than ever.
Most importantly, Muslims are looking for financial tools that reflect their values—and they’re not finding them in Western-built apps.
The Competition
Muslims currently rely on:
Conventional banks (inflation exposure)
Gold jewelry or physical bars (high risk, low liquidity)
Crypto platforms (often speculative, volatile, and non-Shariah)
Platforms like Glint and Kinesis do offer gold-backed wallets—but they lack Islamic values and cultural fit.
We’re not just building another fintech—we’re building a financial tool by the Ummah, for the Ummah.
Market Size
Let’s be conservative.
There are 400M+ digitally connected Muslims in OIC markets today. If we capture just:
10M users, and
10% become active savers with
An average gold balance of $1,000-2,000
That’s $1-2 billion in assets under management. With a 1% annual management fee, small transaction fees, and premium services, this can support a $10–20M ARR business in its initial years.
And that’s just phase one. Once we build trust and traction, this platform can expand into:
Merchant payments
Halal remittances
P2P lending backed by gold
White-labeling for Islamic banks and cooperatives
Business Model
Revenue streams include:
1% annual storage/management fee on gold holdings
Microtransaction fees on sending and spending gold
Premium services like auto-Zakat, group savings (e.g. for Hajj), or multiple vault options
Partnerships with travel agents, Islamic microfinance, and ecommerce providers
Users can start with as little as $5. It's accessible, ethical, and scalable.
Let’s Build This—Together
If this speaks to you—
If you’re a product designer, mobile engineer, fintech nerd, community builder, or Shariah finance expert—join us.
Sign up at Ummah to join our online community. You’ll be invited to a private builders’ group chat where like-minded creators and supporters are ready to co-create, refine, and bring this idea to market. You’ll also get access to a 10–20 page whitepaper detailing the initiative.
This article was written based on original concepts and structure by the author. Generative AI was used to assist with elaboration, refinement, and image.