Offa’s 2024 roundup: major announcements and rapid growth

It has been a stellar year of growth for Offa as we made a series of major announcements about the expansion of our Sharia-compliant home finance products – along with key hires to further enrich our experienced team – leading the way for the whole Islamic finance industry through innovation, focused always on providing a fast and modern service for our customers…

Multi-million pound credit line

We began the year by announcing a multi-million pound credit line from a fund managed by UAE-based Gulf Islamic Investments Group (GII) in April. This is single largest credit line to a British Islamic Finance House and the largest of its kind outside of the Gulf, underscoring GII’s confidence in the UK bridging market. 

It creates significant capacity for us to expand and diversify our bridging proposition in the UK property market.

GII Co-Founder and Co-CEO Mohammed Alhassan commented: “Offa represents an attractive home for GII’s managed assets, in a partnership strengthened by our shared experience of Sharia-compliant ethical business.”

Buy-to-let launch

We were thrilled to launch our buy-to-let (BTL) service in July, transforming and disrupting the traditionally old-fashioned and cumbersome world of Islamic finance with fast funding decisions delivered via a modern paperless process.

Powered by the latest software with end-to-end digital technology, we made it fast and easy to apply and get a quick decision, meaning customers can potentially get a fair decision within minutes, depending on credit rating and risk criteria. The fastest time from application written to offer so far has been approval on the same day and offer by the next day.

Offa has £230 million of sharia-compliant funding for its BTL product, offering significant capacity for the business to expand and diversify its financial propositions in the UK property market.

Media attention and happy customers

The press finally started to notice us in a big way in 2024 – with news articles published across multiple publications, and even in the Sunday Times, reaching a total audience of more than 700 million people.

What really mattered to us though was the positive feedback we have been receiving from the people we care about the most: our customers.

Abdulkadir Bussuri came to Offa seeking Sharia-compliant buy-to-let finance and said: “I am so happy I chose them. They only required me to submit one document as proof of deposit before making a positive decision and I got a formal offer within 7 days. The speed mesmerised my estate agent who said, ‘I’ve never seen an offer given within a week!’”

Meanwhile, Bilal Hayat was unhappy with the service he was getting from two major banks for property re-financing and turned to Offa. He said: “The big banks had been quite difficult and obstructive, not amenable to do business with. Then I had the pleasure of meeting the Offa team at the BIMA National Conference in 2024 and they are fantastic to deal with. The service has been excellent and has exceeded my expectations, with outstanding service and support throughout the process. I hope this is the first of many deals we will do together.”

Landmark deal: Alburaq book purchase

We ended 2024 with big news. Offa acquired Bank of Ireland’s Alburaq Sharia-compliant home finance portfolio – utilising a unique and pioneering funding structure and including more than 350 home purchase plans – and became the first financial institution ever to buy an Islamic home finance book in the UK.

It is testament to Offa’s abilities that Bank of Ireland has agreed to sell its Islamic home finance portfolio to us, and this marks another chapter in our ambitious growth plans. We plan to grow not just organically but also through acquisitions.

All the customers were migrated seamlessly to Offa’s modern platform and now have access to a wider range of Sharia-compliant finance products. Sagheer Malik, our Chief Commercial Officer & Managing Director Retail Finance, and Sultan Choudhury OBE, Executive Chairman, are already very much familiar with Alburaq’s clients, having helped distribute this book almost two decades ago, and we are delighted that these customers have now come home to us.

Award for Offa executive chairman

Our Executive Chairman, Sultan Choudhury OBE, was honoured with the Tun Dr Mahathir Bin Mohamad Leadership Award at the Islam Channel Business Awards in April, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in business and dedication to helping others achieve success. 

The highly respected awards ceremony was attended by more than 1,000 distinguished guests at the Hilton London Metropole including business leaders, MPs and ambassadors in recognition of the accomplishments of British Muslim entrepreneurs, and to serve as inspiration for future generations to excel in the business world.

Big events 

Offa was the star of the show at the NACFB Expo 2024 in June – the UK’s biggest event in finance brokering at the NEC, Birmingham – thanks to our bright yellow F1-inspired imagery emphasising the modernity and speed we offer. It was wonderful to meet so many attendees face to face and see so many discovering Offa for the first time.

We also spent an incredible weekend at the largest Muslim event of its kind in Europe, the Global Peace and Unity event at London’s ExCel Exhibition Centre, in October with an estimated 25,000 visitors and more than 400 exhibitors.

It was a privilege to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones. A special moment for us was seeing a stall dedicated to the history of Islam in the UK, starting with none other than King Offa – after whom our company is named – and both adults and kids enjoyed our Lego city-building challenge.

Appointments

As our business has grown in 2024, we have been expanding our team with a number of key appointments in order to provide the depth of experience and excellence our customers expect.

In May we hired Mustansar Rashid as Senior Operations Manager and Damien Fletcher as Senior PR & Communications Manager. The pair bring decades of experience to their respective roles. Mustansar has been working within Islamic financial services for 17 years, with a background in accounting and operations. Damien has more than a decade of experience as an accomplished public relations executive and was previously a national newspaper journalist.

We followed this up with a trio of senior appointments in July. Qasim Sajad became our new Senior Home Finance Manager, with more than 12 years of experience in Islamic Banking including sales, team management, supervisory training, and staff development. 

He was joined by Saalik Haleem joined as Senior Intermediary and Product Manager, with 11 years in the Islamic finance industry and a track record of developing and enabling teams to deliver exceptional customer service. Dominic Squires was the third appointment, as Head of Compliance & Money Laundering Reporting Officer for BTL and Bridge. He has worked within financial services for more than 20 years, with 16 of those years in the compliance space.

We ended the new year with several more big hires. Mehreen Rafiq joined as Senior Underwriter, having previously worked at Barclays for more than a decade in senior underwriting roles.

Amnah Khan is our new Operations Team Lead, joining from HSBC where she was a Senior Mortgage Financial Support Specialist. She is joined by Shamila Kausar, our new Customer Service Officer, who has experience in banking, customer service, client support and operational efficiency. Shamim Rahman was recruited as Mortgage Underwriter, bringing more than a decade of experience in the finance field and having previously worked at Precise Mortgages.

Finally, Abdullah-Isa Amole, our new Financial Planning & Analysis Manager, is joined by Financial Controller, Sukhdev Atwal.

Making a difference

At Offa we believe in demonstrating our ethics through our actions, and giving something back to society. That’s why we give every member of staff a day off work each year to carry out charitable or community work.

Senior members of Offa staff – Sagheer Malik, Ben Reeves, and Andrew Pitchford – took a literal leap of faith when they skydived to raise funds for Charity Right in October. They raised thousands for Charity Right’s School Meals project – helping school children from forgotten and neglected communities around the world stay healthy and get a good education by providing regular, nutritious meals.

The following month our team learned all about how to save lives personally by attending the Resuscitation Council UK’s ResusReady CPR training programme.

The year ahead…

Expect major product and acquisition announcements in 2025 as we build upon the past year’s successes, pursuing our aggressive growth goals, opening different product lines – and venturing into areas within Islamic finance that others have not. 

Our highly experienced team will continue to modernise British Islamic home finance, banishing cumbersome and old fashioned processes, leading through innovation powered by the latest technology and focusing on delivering the quickest and best service for the most important people: our customers.