March 11, 2024 • 46 mins
In this episode, Dr. Tanvir Uddin, the founder and CEO of Wholesum, a FinTech company focused on making investments accessible for Muslims, shares how Muslims can approach finance holistically, from managing money to using it to make a positive impact.
Timestamps:
02:51 The Power of Financial Empowerment
04:06 The Role of Finance in Society
07:36 The Importance of Financial Independence and Education
12:25 Understanding Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
14:01 The Importance of Financial Planning and Investment
19:58 Understanding Short-Term and Long-Term Investment Options
24:00 The Role and Risks of Managed Funds
28:47 The Challenges for Muslim Investors in Australia
29:36 The Controversial Topic of Cryptocurrency Investments
33:15 The Importance of Asset Allocation and Budgeting
About Dr. Tanvir Uddin:
As a serial entrepreneur, Tanvir loves innovating at the intersection of access to financial services, technology and sustainability. He is the Founder of Wholesum, a platform to increase access to unique positive impact-focused, halal investments. Tanvir holds a PhD from the University of Sydney where his thesis examined the intersection of Islamic law and sustainable development through microfinance programs.
Connect with Dr. Tanvir Uddin:
Resources Mentioned:
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Connect with Mifrah Mahroof:
🏖️ This episode is sponsored by Sisters Explore, a company I founded to offer guided small-group travel for Muslim women to connect, explore, and enjoy faith-centered journeys. Learn more at http://www.sisters-explore.com
Disclaimer: Some links in this description are affiliate links.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (00:00):
So, I think it's something to think about
(00:01):
that, it's not just always aboutthe seeing the dollar signs and
making a lot of money.
As Muslims, we should be veryholistic in how we approach
things just as we, care aboutthe animals that we slaughter
for, meat consumption just as wethink about the ethics of
dealing with people and how wetreat them, it's not just about
a transactional relationship.
Mifrah Mahroof (00:19):
As-salamu alaykum and welcome to the
Muslim Life Hackers podcast.
I'm your host Mifrah Mahroof andthis is the podcast where we get
better every day.
Through conversations withexperts, leaders, and inspiring
individuals.
We're going to give youactionable insights to help you
win in this life and the next.
So if you're ready to level upin every area of your life and
(00:40):
you committed to living withexcellence for the sake of your
Lord.
You're in the right place.
Get ready for insights,inspiration, and a whole lot of
life hacks.
This is a Muslim Life Hackerspodcast.
Let's dive in.
As-salamu alaykum Tanvir,welcome to the show.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (00:56):
Thanks Mifrah.
Thanks for having me.
Mifrah Mahroof (00:57):
Well, thank you for coming on, and, I'm super
excited.
I know there's lots to learnfrom you.
First of all, for those whodon't know you, can you just
give me a quick introductionabout your background and what
you do?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (01:08):
Sure.
I am, a founder and, uh, CEO ofwholesome.
it's an impact investment,FinTech, uh, trying to make
investments obviously availablefor Muslims.
We work with Sharia advisors andscholars, to check the
underlying investments.
and also trying to benefit thegeneral community with accessing
more investments that align withobviously Sharia principles, but
(01:31):
also are out there to try andmake a positive difference in
the world.
in terms of my background, I amoriginally from Bangladesh, and
born there and raised inAustralia, in Sydney.
I've spent most of my careerworking at the intersection of
finance.
Technology and sustainabilityand a positive impact.
and I've done that throughworking from the grassroots with
(01:52):
farmers in Indonesia to workingon large solar farms with the
Islamic Development Bank.
And more recently, innovative,sustainability, fintechs like
Bright and, Vyro, which I alsowas a co-founder of.
That all led me down the path oftrying to empower communities
with finance and of course,making sure it's accessible to
more people such as Muslims whoare very keen about Sharia
(02:13):
compliance.
Trying to make those bridges andthose networks.
So that's in a nutshell aboutmyself.
Mifrah Mahroof (02:19):
Oh, MashaAllah.
so from what I understand, yourstartup is more towards
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (02:24):
So we can accept clients, investors from
around the world.
our license restricts us frombeing able to market as a
financial product.
it's a financial service isextremely regulated, and hence,
while of course, people arereally interested in it.
We can only market in Australia,Singapore, and New Zealand, but
we do accept clients from aroundthe world.
Mifrah Mahroof (02:41):
Oh, okay.
I didn't actually know that forsome reason I thought it was
just Australia, cause that's anassumption normally when you
hear about, Financial services,it's limited to the country.
Okay, so you mentioned thatpoint about empowering,
communities, financially, and Ithink it's a really interesting
way on how you're looking atmaking an empowerment.
So it's like financialempowerment.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (03:02):
Yeah.
my first experience with financeand also Islamic finance for
that matter, was working inIndonesia with farmers and it
really struck me that how asmall amount of money could
really free up.
People from the shackles ofpoverty and from debt bondage.
So the story of a Sharia isabout working with coconut sugar
(03:23):
farmers who were often in a debtrelationship with the trader
that purchased the harvest thatthey sold to, and the farmers
just needed a few hundreddollars to get out of that
bondage situation.
And that's where finance canunlock that by giving small
access to capital, they're ableto invest into their farm.
They can grow their farmoperations and harvest, and also
(03:44):
then provide a share of theprofits back to the investor who
provided that finance.
This is a key as it's afinancial empowerment for both
sides.
It's financial empowerment forinvestors because they are able
to invest in something that'sobviously halal, but also is
providing a commercial returnand it's financial empowerment
for the beneficiary who'sreceiving that finance to
(04:04):
undertake the activity that theyneed.
And this is the financialecosystem.
The purpose of finance, if wethink our banks, financial
institutions, other financialintermediaries, is to take money
from people who have extrasavings and wanting to make that
work for them.
And as in, get a financialreturn and connect them.
To people who need capital.
(04:24):
So borrowers and investors,entrepreneurs.
and that's the goal of thefinancial system.
But often that system is notworking in many countries around
the world, or it's not workingin certain communities.
here in Australia, for example,that Islamic financial system is
very limited.
We only have a few products.
There's yet to be, for example,Islamic insurance, so even
(04:45):
business finance, there's verylimited Islamic business finance
except for when you're doingvery large business operations.
If you're a small tradie or youwanna run a cafe shop, there's
actually no Islamic businessloans that are available outside
of very few limited offering.
So, the vision for Wholesum ishow do we provide empower for
both sides?
how do we do it in a halal way,and how do we do it in a way
(05:06):
that's positive for thecommunity, not supporting
activities that are harmful?
and ultimately, that creates anuplift for the entire community
and for the general public aswell.
Mifrah Mahroof (05:16):
Yeah, what you were saying reminds me of this,
statement I heard somewhere andthey were saying every dollar
that you spend builds the worldthat you wanna see.
So there's a direct impact on,where we put our money and how
that affects the world that weliving
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (05:33):
cause money can do positive things and it
can do negative things.
If we invest into, activitiesthat create jobs, reduce
environmental damage, empowercommunities, that's a positive
thing.
But also money can be used forharmful Things.
there's a lot of debate at themoment around climate change and
the need to direct funds to,away from fossil fuels and
investment into fossil fuelsthat create accessible climate
(05:55):
change.
There's of course also thediscussions and a lot of focus
right now with some conflictsaround the world, around
investment into companies thatpromote and use weapons and
particularly weapons exceedingdestructive nature.
That's all funded by capital,right?
Because those companies needmoney and they go and produce
factories, that produce weaponsand there's investors behind
(06:16):
them as well who are fuelingthat.
So yeah, finance can be used forgood and can be also used for
harm and we need to try andpromote more of the good.
Mifrah Mahroof (06:23):
Yeah, one thing that I don't notice much is, a
lot of conversations money,especially in the Muslim
community.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (06:29):
Yeah.
Mifrah Mahroof (06:29):
What are you though on that
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (06:30):
Yeah.
it's a really funny thing.
generally money seems to be abit of a taboo topic, or it
seems it's not something,
Mifrah Mahroof (06:37):
like you're the dunya or something.
something
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (06:39):
I've always been motivated by a lot of
figures in the Islamic history.
some of our scholars, Imam AbuHanifa, for example, being a
trader, Prophet SAW himself wasa trader and I think the general
gist from from their practicesis that the dunya, you keep it
in your hand and you use it.
For good, but you don't bring itinto the heart because you don't
(07:00):
want it to, misdirect you.
and to take you away fromultimately being the service of
a Allah SWT and the Ummah.
and you don't want that tocorrupt you and make you greedy
or becomes so stingy andmiserly.
So there's obviously at workingout that balance, but there's no
doubt that the dunya is veryimportant'cause it's a time that
we are here.
and through that we can do a lotof good.
(07:21):
So many people, if you thinkabout the biggest
philanthropists in the world,from the Bill Gates of the world
to some of the most commondonors within just our community
here.
They're using their wealth for abetter cause.
and I think that's veryaspirational and something that
we can all be inspired by.
So in the community there's ageneral sort of, I guess maybe a
spiritual conundrum aroundwealth and money.
and then it's also oh, youtalking about money, it seems
(07:45):
okay.
are you being greedy?
Are you always about money whenyou talk about it?
and that can creep up.
Unfortunately, the sinister sideof this, I mean, there's a lot
of sinister sides to this, whichI see.
And it has real world impacts.
So, for example, women, a lot ofwomen, are in financially
abusive relationships.
There's a lot of research aboutthis.
There's a Bangladeshi researcherthat I've been reading up
(08:05):
recently who's been doing workabout, women who've migrated
from Bangladesh to Australia andthe financially abusive
relationships that they end upwith.
I volunteer with a charitycalled the Rise Foundation, and
they provide.
job readiness training,financial literacy training for
women escaping, abusive,situations.
that's one example of where itcan be really sinister, and the
lack of awareness and lack offinancial independence is really
(08:27):
having an impact, but a lot ofyoung people are getting up into
last year a lot of people lostmoney during the crypto, winter
when it started.
And that's because a lot ofpeople didn't know about where
to invest and how to invest.
They Saw these tiktoks and theseapps and people were investing
in Bitcoin and supposedly makinga lot of money.
that's where it can be sinisteras well.
So we need to get to theforefront of this and understand
(08:48):
it.
And of course there's the halaleducation aspect as well.
And how do we invest in Halalway, so that ties in as another
layer to make it, perhaps evenmore complex, but also very
important.
Mifrah Mahroof (08:59):
Yeah, there are so many angles.
Like you can look at when itcomes to money, and especially
attitudes in our community.
Like for example, you actuallymentioned the thing about women
being in abusive situations andit's very common for me to hear
things like, okay, women don'tneed finances they have their
husband.
And those kind of conversations,which is quite
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (09:18):
I think, look, obviously a family unit is a
team.
and I think there's differenttypes of layers of our social
networks.
We've got our immediatefamilies, we've got our
neighbors and our communitywhere we live, and then as an
Ummah we can think of a globalcommunity as well.
There are important socialobligations that are there at
all levels, and a lot of themare mandated within Islamic law.
(09:40):
And of course We are living in acountry where we are very
fortunate that there's greatsafety nets and public welfare
as well.
So not withstanding all of that,things do go wrong.
Things people do fall throughthe cracks and I think it's an
obligation upon us asindividuals who look after the
people that are around us, butalso as a community to try and
help people.
Just at the very minimum, geteducated and understand, what
(10:02):
resources available and how theycan become empowered.
And then also creating theinfrastructure to support who do
fall through the cracks.
And that can happen, it's notalways the case that a husband
is doing the right thing bytheir wife, or a family is doing
the right thing by the peoplethat are within their care,
whether it be children andorphans.
And we know a lot about theprotection of orphans in the
Islamic tradition and howRosulullah SAW talked a lot.
(10:22):
I mean, he himself was an orphanand advocated a lot for orphans.
the bottom line is, I don'tthink we should take this for
granted.
and I tell this story a lot whenI got married I asked my wife do
you have any of your own wealth?
not to take advantage of it oranything.
I said, one of the things youneed to do is put that aside, as
your own little, wealth nest,and safety net for yourself.
and build upon that for your ownobject, for your own goals.
(10:44):
And obviously, that can be ofbenefit to the family, to the
community, to your own pursuits.
And the thing I got her to do,and she had no idea about this
was, to put some of her moneyinto a very long-term
investments via Islamic ETFs.
And these are very easyinstruments to buy through
brokerage accounts, and they'revery low maintenance because
once you purchase those ETFs,the idea is that they track the
(11:06):
market.
And we bought two particularETFs for her, in her name and in
her account.
and they're tracking the marketand doing really well and
doesn't require a lot of effort.
So these are small things likethat, that I believe really is
important.
I did a similar thing for mymother-in-Law.
my wife was telling me that mymother-in-Law, she works as a
childcare, taking care of coupleof children and she's
accumulated a little bit ofsavings, which she's not really
(11:27):
using, it's not part of herdaily needs.
And I said, yeah, same thing.
Put her into an investmentaccount.
we set it up with an Islamiccrowdfunding platform, based on
it's offshore.
and that's just providing aregular, double digit return for
her.
Through that process, and it'slow touch.
I really believe in that and Ithink empowering our community
and giving people, particularlypeople who are otherwise a bit
(11:47):
more vulnerable with options iskey.
Mifrah Mahroof (11:50):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
When you mentioned financialeducation like each person
knowing like what they can dowith their wealth, because I see
that very commonly with women aswell.
we have our wealth and it justsits there and we don't really
use it because I actually so Iwork in IT, so I have lots of
male colleagues and would tellme about what they would do with
(12:10):
their money and they're readilyinvesting it and they're really
making it work for them.
But whereas when with my femalefriends, which, yeah, it's just
sitting there and there's notreally any understanding what to
do with that money and even thatterm ETF, what is an ETF?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (12:25):
Yeah.
So an ETF is stands for ExchangeTraded Fund.
I've just fallen into the commonmistake, which is, of using all
these jargon and terms, which isin the finance world.
that's an example.
I'm an example of the problem
Mifrah Mahroof (12:38):
And the average person
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (12:39):
so I'm an example of problem there.
it's essentially, it's likepurchasing a share, that you can
purchase on any stock market orshare trading or brokering
account, but that particularshare, it's like a unit in a
fund that's managed by a fundmanager.
and they basically what they dowith your money is they invest
into many dozens, if nothundreds of companies.
(13:01):
so it's like by buying that oneunit in that one fund, I'm able
to get exposure to manydifferent companies.
and it saves me the headache andhassle of having to purchase
those individual company sharesmyself.
I'm relying on and I'm takingadvantage of the diversification
opportunity again, which ismeans that they're able to
(13:21):
invest into many companies andspread the risk, among that.
And so we are working, sothere's many Islamic fund
managers that provide, ExchangeTraded Funds or ETFs, there's
now a few listed on theAustralian Stock Exchange.
There's been a few on the USmarkets, also in Europe.
They're generally considered tobe a very simple and effective
way to invest.
(13:41):
Obviously everyone should readthe risk parameters and get
their own financial advice, butfor novice investors, it's a
relatively easy of getting intothe market, and in investing.
Making those pieces of knowledgeavailable.
So people can learn about whatother options out there, and
then obviously they can go backand talk to their financial
advisors and planners or reflecton it for themselves.
And it's also just a basicconcept to invest in the first
(14:04):
place.
Why should we even invest?
what does investing mean in aperson's broader financial
decision?
sort of matrix.
they've gotta think aboutobviously how much, and it
starts with things likebudgeting and how much am I
budgeting and how much am Isaving?
what are my goals?
Goals for myself, my family,children, perhaps charities as
well.
What are my goals in the shortterm and the long term?
(14:25):
And so these are sorts ofconversations that are really
important and we're often caughtup in the day-to-day, and we
don't think about it, but that'simportant.
'Cause now inflation is reallyhigh, so if we are not putting
our money away to productiveuse.
If we're just sitting in a bankor just sitting there not doing
anything, we are potentiallylosing value on our wealth.
which can be a big problembecause cost of living is rising
(14:46):
around the world, particularlyin Australia.
We're feeling it, and we need toget ahead of that inflation
problem.
Otherwise, we'll have less andless money.
Mifrah Mahroof (14:53):
Okay.
So I want you to take me throughthis then.
if someone were to be getting apaycheck, say they're getting
like$5,000, right?
And it comes in, what do they dowith that wealth at that point?
that down, for
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (15:06):
there's many different, to answer that
question, of course, we have tolook at a whole range of
different aspects of people'scircumstances, but we talk
generally.
Mifrah Mahroof (15:13):
The average basic in person that
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (15:16):
The first thing a common sort of hack that
I've read about and seen inmany, financial, budgeting
resources.
and of the financial gurus thatI've read about, they talk about
the 80 20 rule, which is, youshould think about your money as
being, you know that$5,000 likebing a pie, and if you think
about it's five slices, oneslice every month, you should
(15:38):
look at a way to automatetransfer into a savings and
investment account.
So you get your paycheck intoyour main account, and have that
automatically transferred out.
So from that$5,000, looking atroughly about a thousand dollars
that you'll be putting intosavings and investment, the
other$4,000.
You should have a very clearbudget around what you can spend
(16:00):
on.
And of course, you've got yourbasics that you need.
You might have rent, you'll havegroceries, you've got, fuel and
other transport costs.
and putting aside then otherbudgets, things like, so you
know exactly how much you'regonna spend on leisure that
week.
So don't go over that budget.
how much you might put aside fordonations and charities.
And that's also a good practiceto have, how much you might put
(16:20):
aside for family and otherincidentals.
Maybe a bit of an emergencybuffer as well.
Something unforeseen might comeup.
family members drop by or, youmight need to go and visit
someone.
You're gonna take a gift forthem.
All of that, within that$4,000.
so it's very clear, and ifthere's any excess at the end of
the month, you'll put that backinto your savings as well.
So let's say now that's the4,000 done.
(16:42):
You're left with that a thousanddollars without a thousand
dollars.
You'll put that towards aninvestment goal.
Now, ideally, you'll put it, youwould've already worked out your
investment plan and savingsgoals ahead of time.
And what that means is you lookat your short term, your medium
term, and your long term.
So what I often tell people isthat.
Mifrah Mahroof (17:01):
Okay.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (17:01):
Your money.
If you think about it as a stackof cash, almost visualize it,
that stack of cash that youhave, that's all your savings.
The way you look at every dollaron that stack of cash is going
to be different.
Some of that stack of cash is, Ineed it for an upcoming expense,
that's very in the foreseeablefuture, it could be big or
(17:22):
small, but there'd be somethingthat's coming up.
Like for example, I might have acar insurance payment that I've
gotta make.
I've gotta do the rego on my caragain, or I know that I have my
quarterly electricity billcoming up.
It's a typically a short termthing.
It could be within three monthsto six months maybe.
So I need to know what that is,and I need to plan for it
beforehand so it doesn'tsurprise me.
(17:44):
So I'm gonna put some moneyaside from now leading up to
that.
Right?
And if it's gonna happen inthree months, I might be saving
a bit.
Mifrah Mahroof (17:50):
Yeah.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (17:51):
Month by month or I might be using some of the
money that I've already gotsaved.
I'm gonna say, this is alreadyearmarked.
I've kept it aside.
I'm not gonna do it for anythingelse'cause I've got something
that's coming very quickly.
So that's your short term.
Then there's gonna be a part ofyour money stack, that is, for
medium term purposes.
So, for example, when my parentswere planning for Hajj, they
(18:12):
started putting some money asideand it was a three year kind of
planning process.
'cause, Hajj has become reallyexpensive now.
and they knew that money theyneeded to put it aside for Hajj
and because.
They really wanted to go toHajj.
They didn't wanna risk it byputting it towards anything
else, and they actually didn'twant to invest it anywhere.
They put it, aside until theyleave for Hajj.
(18:33):
And then you've got like goalsthat might be three to five
years.
So, for example, a lot of peoplethat I speak to, especially
young people, they've reallylike to get into the property
market, get their first home.
so that's often a common thing.
Some people wanna save formarriage, some people wanna save
for a big trip.
some people wanna save forstarting a business.
And so that money is notimmediate.
(18:54):
So it's not oh, I've gotta keepspend it like in the next year.
But it's not so distant that youcan forget about it either.
So what if, for those kind ofmedium term plans, we often need
to put it into some investmentswith a shorter term horizon,
typically.
Something that will have, it'llprovide a return.
'cause obviously you don't wantto sitting around doing nothing.
'cause again, we talked aboutinflation.
(19:15):
you'd wanna have the ability toliquidate, which means pull your
money out back from thatinvestment into your own,
accounts or savings or cashform, relatively quickly and
easily.
And you want to have, investmentreturns that are not too
volatile because investments canbe very volatile.
And if it's gonna be down oneyear, you're gonna wanna hold
(19:36):
onto it longer so that you cannot only get back to positive,
but you can make up for theperiod that you lost money.
So you wanna think about thoseinvestments that fit that
particular objective.
Mifrah Mahroof (19:48):
what are some examples of that when you think
about it?
like examples that are, uh,compliant, like suitable for for
our values and as being Muslimsand stuff.
'cause I know that there'sproducts and things there, for
the Muslims it's kind of hard
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (20:02):
Absolutely.
I guess it'd be helpful to gofrom that spectrum.
So what are the very short terminvestment options all the way
towards longer term investmentoptions?
Mifrah Mahroof (20:10):
Okay.
let's hear it.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (20:12):
When you're looking at very short term, you
are generally looking for, andI'll talk about what are the
criteria that one looks for.
So the criteria for short termis very liquid.
You can pull it out quickly'cause you need it.
It's not volatile.
So very stable.
The value's not gonna go up anddown and you want it to be Very
safe.
So safe means from a financeperspective, either someone's
(20:33):
provided a guarantee, and I'lltalk about what that means or,
the investments themselves ofbacked up by very strong
security, very strongprotections.
So what guarantee means is thatthere is a protection, a legal
protection, to maintain thevalue of that investment.
There is only one Type ofinvestment that's guaranteed.
(20:56):
And that is a bank account up to$250,000.
How is that guaranteed?
It is guaranteed by the depositinsurance scheme, which is a
government initiative backed upby ultimately taxpayers.
So the government will step inif a bank, a licensed bank in
Australia was to Go Cap puts,your savings in that bank
(21:18):
account up to$250,000 isguaranteed.
The government through taxpayermoney will pay back up to
250,000.
Now if you have more than that,it's not guaranteed.
Now, there was a case, in Greecea couple of years ago during
their financial crisis and someAustralian Greeks lost a lot of
money because those Greek banksweren't under, and they didn't
have a lot of capitalprotection.
(21:40):
So I think a lot of people thinkthat, oh, my money in the bank
is safe.
Actually, your money in the bankis safe only up to$250,000.
Mifrah Mahroof (21:46):
one.
Yeah.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (21:47):
Now, generally speaking.
Mifrah Mahroof (21:49):
amount.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (21:49):
There hasn't been a major bank collapse in
decades, if not for over ahundred years.
I'll just correct me on thatone.
and so banks are generally verysafe, as place to keep your
money.
But here's the conundrum forMuslims.
There are no Islamic banks.
So there are no banks inAustralia that provide a Halal
investment return.
And we are not meant to be,taking the interest as income.
(22:11):
it's not permitted.
Mifrah Mahroof (22:12):
Yeah, because you hear from a lot of financial
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (22:14):
Yeah, so the problem we have as Muslims in
Australia, and this needs to besolved, and obviously there are
initiatives like the IslamicBank of Australia that's trying
to work to solve this problem.
But currently, as of today,there are no halal Islamic bank
investment options.
So what's the next best option?
The next best option is to putit into a few Islamic finance
(22:36):
companies that offer, short terminvestment opportunities.
What I mean by short term is youcan put your money in and you
can pull it out relativelyquickly.
You can't pull it out as quickas a bank.
Like I can't pull it outtomorrow or tonight.
But they'll have a usually ashort window of up to 30 days.
So I know Icfa, for example, hasa 30 day callback.
MCCA has a similar one.
(22:56):
Now, the thing I wanna point outthough is these are really the
next best thing.
They are not guaranteed.
So there is risk andunfortunately without a bank, we
can't have that capitalguarantee.
So that's on the short term.
So short term companies likeIcfa, MCCA, a couple of these
players will provide a shortterm financing.
Now, if you are willing toventure outside Australia, you
(23:19):
could open up a savings bankaccount with Islamic banks
globally.
So some people are dual citizen.
They have bank accounts inBangladesh, Pakistan, UAE,
Malaysia, other places, someIslamic banks might also allow
international account holders.
Again, you'll have to look it upand see the risks and
parameters.
Obviously, that then attractsnew risks like currency risks.
(23:40):
If I put my money in and theAustralian dollar appreciates,
then the value of that accountwill drop.
So again, you'll have to lookinto those factors.
Then moving along the spectrum abit now towards medium term
investments, of course you'vegot short-term investment funds.
Hijaz has one.
and, uh, Icfa, MCC also haveshort-term income funds, which
you can invest into.
(24:00):
These are managed funds andthey're licensed under
Australian, ASIC regulations asmoney managed investment
schemes.
These are not eTFs.
these are just managed fund.
What that means is they'reessentially pulling.
So wholesome, my company's alsoa managed fund.
We bring people put their moneyin, like they pull it together
into a fund.
And the fund issues units todifferent investors based on how
(24:23):
much they've put money in.
So someone's put in, a thousanddollars,$10,000 of them will
have.
Units representing the number ofamount of money that money comes
in, and the fund manager'sresponsibility is to invest it
according to the investmentmandate.
So whenever a person joins amanaged fund, they sign a
contract.
And that contract is usually, ifit's a retail investment fund,
(24:45):
it's called a product disclosurestatement.
If it's a wholesum investmentfund, which is like us, it's
called an informationmemorandum.
I always advise people that makesure you read that and
understand that because it'lloutline very important.
Points, what are the fees, whatare the risks?
what are they investing in?
and how is that working?
a lot of people are surprised bysome of these things.
(25:06):
'cause they think they'regetting into something and they
don't really know.
And later on they get stung byfees or they get stung by
saying, oh, I thought that theinvestment fund was doing this,
but actually it's doingsomething else.
So it's important to read up andunderstand those and speak to
someone.
if you don't understand thedocuments, speak to someone who
can help you, read them.
So in the medium term horizon,there's a lot of investment
funds, ourselves, hijaz, acouple of other players do that.
(25:28):
and again, you need to look at,read, each fund will have a
different parameter, right?
So some of them are more towardsshort term, some are more
towards longer term.
and the longer term and shortterm will often be determined by
what they're investing into.
So if a managed fund isinvesting into, equities or
shares in companies.
Typically you are looking at alonger term horizon, like maybe
three, if not especially fiveplus years, because stock market
(25:51):
prices are gonna go up and down.
They'll be up of one month.
They might be down the nextmonth.
Mifrah Mahroof (25:56):
Three to years
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (25:57):
that's generally considered medium.
I'll get to the really longerterm in a moment.
now again, it'll depend on thenature of the companies as well.
If you're gonna invest intoprimarily, what they call blue
chip stocks.
So blue chip stocks are thelargest, most profitable, the
most successful companies, inAustralia.
There might be BHP bulletin.
(26:18):
they might be, for example,pharmacy chains or hospital
groups, like Ramsey.
Or they might be, Telstra.
As a telco, these are very solidcompanies.
They are very profitable, sothey are fairly, they're
relatively safe, in the mediumterm.
Now, if you're gonna invest intocompanies that are small,
they're growing, they're morerisky.
(26:38):
and so the return that you mightrealize on them in the short
term, it might be quite, itcould even be negative, but then
you are thinking, okay, if Ihold onto that company in the
long term.
They're gonna turn a profit andI'm gonna be okay.
So again, you're gonna have toread into the details of who
those managed funds areinvesting into to appreciate the
risk reward parametersparticularly for you.
(26:58):
And that will also determine howlong or short term you can hold
it.
So you've got managed funds andthe instruments in the short
term.
Then moving along, If we look atthe longer term, so let's say 5,
6, 7 plus years beyond that,you're looking at the space of
venture capital funds, you'relooking at the space of property
(27:18):
investment funds, and you'relooking into the space of more
sort of, You like more volatile,more risky assets, including,
for example, startups, small capcompanies.
so companies that are verysmall, they are really going for
moonshots or they're going for avery long term strategy.
there's no easy pathway for themin the short term.
So for example,
Mifrah Mahroof (27:40):
Yeah.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (27:41):
A lot of startups are like that, they
might not make any money forseven to 10 years, but they're
growing, building a product,iterating, and So you've gotta
really hold out your money for along term before you make a
profit.
But also it's also not liquid.
What that means is I can't justquickly pull my money out
tomorrow.
Why?
Because startups, andparticularly venture capital
funds, they invest in startups.
(28:01):
Those startups are taking moneyand they're investing into the
product.
They're not ready to pay adividend.
Definitely.
And the only way you can makemoney from'em is when that
company might list on the stockmarket.
So either, otherwise known asthe initial price offering or
IPO, you hear that a lot.
or the company gets bought outby another company and when they
buy it out, they pay out all theshareholders, which includes
(28:22):
yourself.
You might be an investor inthem, so they're not very
liquid.
Property is also not liquidbecause you gotta sell the
property to get the money out.
And that you gotta, and knowingthe property cycle a bit tricky.
It might be a five, seven yearcycle.
so investing requires one tomatch up.
the time horizon with the riskand the liquidity situation and
(28:43):
ultimately your objectives.
I've just given a flavor of afew investment options.
There are obviously a lot moreout there.
But of course there is a generalchallenge for Muslim investors
in Australia.
There really isn't a lot of theinstruments and options that are
available to the general publicare not as much available
Muslims, because they're justnot as many Islamic, funds or
Islamic entrepreneurs.
What we really need is moreentrepreneurs to get out there
(29:05):
and create products, we need tocreate new investment vehicles.
A part of wholesum's vision iswe wanna, started with
investment management becausewhat we wanted to do was start
with funds management, to getcapital in and through that we
can start innovating with newproducts and services.
I mentioned that we don't have alot of Islamic financing
products, personal loans, carloans, business loans, and all
(29:27):
sorts of other products likethat and insurance.
So what we wanted to do was totry and start to build that
bridge to create more productsin the community so that we can
help more people
Mifrah Mahroof (29:36):
All right, So one of the things that I wanted
to ask you, so we actually spokeabout different types of
investing and I also wanted toget around, get on the topic of
crypto actually, because it'ssomething that a lot of people
speak about as an investment andwant to know what your thoughts
are on this.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (29:53):
Yeah, sure.
So
tanvir--dr-_3_02-19-2024_0914 (29:55):
I mean,
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (29:55):
cryptocurrency investments has become a
completely new type of assetclass that just didn't exist
five, 10 years ago and becamereally popularized with a number
of exchanges.
I think there's two things tonote about crypto.
One is that there are, like, theunderlying technology is quite
fascinating and if you thinkabout the blockchain and what
it's enabling and how it makesthe speed of transfers and the
(30:18):
ease of converting into digitalassets and back is quite
remarkable.
There are some use cases incertain countries.
There are it is probably one ofthe most legitimate and easily
accessible ways to invest andsave you money, but also
transfer.
If you think about in countrieswhere the financial system isn't
as robust or it's not as easy toinvest into other assets,
(30:38):
especially if you have a smallamount of money and you're in
remote locations.
My sort of, take on cryptoinvesting, particularly where
there are real assets and it's alot easier to access.
And what I mean by real assetsare you can take small amounts
of investments in property orstock market or ETFs or put it
into funds when you have thoseaccessible options out there, it
(31:00):
is really important to diversifyand what's happened for a lot of
Muslims.
Where they aren't aware aboutalternative investments or they
they don't have a lot of moneyto invest in.
There was a huge allocation froma lot of, especially a lot of
millennials into crypto over thelast couple of years,
particularly just before thecrypto winter where, and what's
(31:20):
called the crypto is basicallywhere the prices or value of
major cryptocurrencies droppeddramatically.
So a lot of people lost money,so I think that's for one thing
to be very careful about.
But for me, there's anotherreally practical reason, and I
guess this is why when I've setup my fund and the philosophy
behind our fund is we wanted toinvest into assets.
(31:40):
Particularly investing intosmall and medium businesses and
microfinance because they have adirect tangible benefit in
society.
They're creating jobs, they'rehelping reduce inequality when
you're investing into crypto.
Whilst it's a legitimate asset,it's not clear where the
proceeds are directly having apositive benefit.
And that to me is why personallyI don't invest in crypto.
(32:01):
Because I'd rather have myinvestments do something
positive and have a directimpact.
So I think it's something tothink about that, it's not just
always about the seeing thedollar signs and making a lot of
money.
As Muslims, we should be veryholistic in how we approach
things just as we care about theanimals that we slaughter for
meat consumption.
Just as we think about theethics of dealing with people
and how we treat them, it's notjust about a transactional
(32:22):
relationship.
We should approach our money andhow we make money where we
invest money in a holisticframework.
And, the Quran talks aboutThayyib and being wholesum with
not just halal, but wholesum andalso like being wholesum in a
very holistic sense and a verybroad societal sense.
Mifrah Mahroof (32:38):
Yeah, that's a fair point when you look at it
that way, because I guess whenpeople look at crypto or what's
talked about around crypto, it'sokay, you can make the most
money out of it or something,although that's very subjective.
But I guess coming back to ourIslamic principles, which is the
most important thing, isactually seeing what is that
money going to be doing to ourworld?
How is that gonna improve ourworld?
(32:59):
And I see where your comingfrom.
So ideally we should be thinkingabout ways on how we can grow
our wealth, but also grow theworld as well, because that's
our responsibility as caretakersof the world.
And very important point thatyou brought up.
Okay.
Now since you spoke about thosedifferent asset classes, crypto,
now I wanna know go back a biton earlier when you spoke about
(33:22):
asset allocation and what woulda person do practically when
they actually get their jobsalary, and what do you actually
do with that?
Do you need to actually sit downand write down a budget and
write down what your expensesare and then try to stick to it
or is there like a percentage orwhat are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (33:41):
Yeah, no, sure.
I'll share some practicalpoints.
It is really important to have avery good understanding of
basically what's called cashinflows, which is money coming
in to a person's account ortheir household.
Rather, we often as Muslims, welive in families typically.
And we need to consider aboutthe family responsibility,
whether it be, adults andchildren, grandparents.
(34:02):
So cash inflows coming in andalso cash outflows, which are
where the money is beingallocated and spent to.
And one of the things there'stwo kind of concepts that I
always think a lot about and Italk to people about.
One is, The prophet's cousin henot only do we know him as a
deeply spiritual person, amilitary leader, a political
leader, but he also was known tobe a successful financial
(34:24):
planner and someone whoorganized wealth and managed
that really well.
There's a particular sayingthat's often attributed to him,
which is that he used to saythat you should prepare like you
could die at any time.
And that's coming from thatspiritual perspective that,
death can be as
Mifrah Mahroof (34:37):
So your finances, you
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (34:38):
no.
As in prepare for death becausewe could leave the world at any
time.
So we should always try and begood and we should try and be
prepared that our balance ofgood deeds is outweighing our
bad deeds.
But he said in terms of whenyou're living the world and
you're managing your financesand you're managing your
responsibility to society.
Imagine like you're gonna liveforever.
And what that means is, and whatpeople interpret it as is that,
(35:02):
we need our resources to lastfor us.
We don't wanna become dependentin society.
We don't wanna be in an old agewhere we like begging people for
resources and money.
We should think okay, if I'mgonna live forever in a sort
metaphoric sense what am Idoing?
I'm producing, I'm beingproductive and I'm being useful
to society.
I'm not becoming a burden inthat sense.
And so that comes down tofinancial planning and how we
(35:23):
think about allocating ourresources today, so that it can
last in the future.
How are we earning money todayso that we have enough to invest
and save for the future?
So that's one thing.
The other thing is RosulullahSAW used to make a lot of dua
around debt and, there's so manyHadith talking about debt.
Particularly there was a casewhere someone.
had a debt and he was hesitatingto pray the Jenazah over that
(35:44):
person to someone that person'sdebt.
And that's because debt is aburden.
It's a burden on a person, butalso can cause rifts between
people and between societies.
So if we weigh those two kind ofconcepts up I'll talk about some
principles from budget.
So let's say I've got$5,000 20%of that, or$1,000.
I should immediately from my paypacket, I should think about,
(36:05):
okay, I'm gonna put this asidefor savings and that's going to
be money that I'm gonna putaside for the future.
I might invest it, I might justleave it into account because I
might have an expense coming upin the future.
So I'm already starting to thinkabout my future planning, right?
So 20% there, then the bulk ofour expenses should be for the
most essentials, we need to makesure our essentials taken care
(36:26):
of.
If we don't take care of ouressentials and we start spending
on things that are lessessential then we're not taking
care of the most importantthings, whether it be our
families, our basic sort ofliving items like shelter and
food and clothing.
So probably 40% would beallocated to that then another
20%.
And is to help us pay off anyits existing obligations and
(36:47):
they might be debts that we haveincurred.
And again, coming back to thatprinciple, the Prophet SAW was
really cautious about debt.
It's not forbidden to take debt,but.
If we want to follow thatguidance, we wanna try and
minimize our debt.
And for a lot of people theremight be debts associated with
student debt.
People might have taken outcredit cards, this'cause they
were trying to pay for somethingthat became unexpected or there
(37:09):
might be other types of, debtrelationships that one has
entered into, whether it be ahome finance or a car finance.
So that would be another 20%.
And then the final 20% are forthings that are short term in
nature.
They might be a bit of leisure.
They might be for thoseadditional things that pop up
every now and then.
You've got family visiting, youmight want to go visit someone
and buy them gifts.
(37:29):
You might go take your familyout every now and then to eat
out for a coffee.
So for those sort ofdiscretionary and less essential
items.
So that's roughly a frameworkthat one can apply.
Obviously circumstances willchange and everyone's situations
a little bit different, but atleast getting to the mindset of
every time.
Setting up budget at thebeginning of the year
(37:49):
particularly.
'cause you'll know things like,okay, what my income's gonna be
for the year.
And you can obviously tweak itacross the way, but setting that
up and monitoring and adjustingas you go along.
Am I spending too much?
Am I spending too less?
What's going on?
Can I invest more?
How's my investment performancegoing?
Can I perhaps.
Allocate a bit more in the nextcouple of months to take
advantage of this currentinvestment opportunity.
(38:10):
Then maybe in the next fewmonths, I'll just dial it back.
So it's just having a verypractical and pragmatic way of
monitoring ourselves on aregular basis.
And just keeping ourselvesaccountable.
At the end of the day, it's justabout accountability.
What we don't wanna be ishedonistic, that's the crux of
what Rosulullah SAW and Ali r.a.
is messages.
We don't wanna treat our wealthlike.
You know, it'sothing that wetake it for granted.
(38:31):
We wanna be proactive, and thatproactivity comes back from a
very spiritual perspectivebecause we want to be grateful
for Allah SWT's given us, and wewant to be responsible towards
our families and our society,and that requires us to be on
top of it.
Mifrah Mahroof (38:47):
Yeah, that's true when you actually put the
spiritual frameworks in it, likethinking that, okay, if we can
die any moment, I should do theright things with my wealth, be
ethical and all thoseprinciples, and then think long
term so that we don't become aburden on our societies or we
don't, we live such a hard lifewhen we, retire and that income
goes away or anything.
And it's really sad to see whenyou see people who have retired
(39:09):
and they didn't think abouttheir long-term finances when
they were younger.
And now they're really at themercy of their children or
society if they don't have anychildren or even if they did
have children and the childrendidn't want help or things like
that.
And it's one it's very sad tosee,
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (39:23):
It is
Mifrah Mahroof (39:24):
All right, so we're actually nearing the end
of the interview and very, a lotof interesting points that we
covered on.
Now I actually want to knowabout your life hack actually.
So what's actually one life hackthat has helped you improve your
life, whether that be infinances or just your life in
general?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (39:43):
I think that one particular thing when I've
been on top of this particularactivity I've really reaped the
benefits and when I haven't,everything else seems to have
started to fall apart a littlebit or not have not as been as
great.
And that is A regular physicalexercise or activity regimen.
The thing that I started pickingup doing when I moved back to
(40:03):
Australia from Saudi Arabia wasrunning whatever your activity
might be, whether it's running,whether it's gardening, whether
you do a lot of walking.
But it's really, I think thatphysical exercise and having a
regularity to it is so key.
What I found that was beneficialwas when I started running, I
not only started to, fix myweight and my sort of, even in
(40:23):
terms of just moving the body,getting the heart flow going.
But I started to see a lot ofreally great benefits for
everything else.
My, my mental health was a lotbetter.
I had more sort of optimism andmore energy to do other things.
And likewise when I've droppedit, so there's in periods where
I'm running really well.
Then I get a little bit sick andI'm out of that habit.
Then I start feeling sluggish.
(40:43):
I start feeling stressed.
Anything starts to irritate me.
And I'm like, okay, this is athing that's dropped.
I need to get back onto it.
And one, I've realized was thatit just started helping give me
a good structure to my day.
So for example, if I'm going tobe traveling out to work
somewhere.
I would usually run in themorning feel really good, and
then I'll do my day or I woulddo like a solid stint of work in
(41:03):
the morning and take a break atlunch to go for a run, come
back, energize, continue theday.
So it just sets a really goodregime.
and, you feel a lot good aboutyourself as well.
Especially even with finances,like one of the things is about
momentum and what you wanna dois just keep at the momentum.
It's not about, like forrunning.
It's not like I've gotta be aunder two hours, under three
hours marathon runner, but it'sjust that small steps, that
(41:25):
regular steps.
And coming back to RosulullahSAW advice about taking the
moderate path and being veryconsistent.
So that's something a hack thatI find a lot of benefit and a
lot of other people that Iadmire, people who seem to be
doing really well with theirfinances or with their careers.
I find that's one of the mostcommon threads.
They have a regular exerciseregime.
that's something that yeah, I,I'll definitely encourage.
Mifrah Mahroof (41:48):
Yeah, I guess it just really comes down to when
you fulfill the rights of yourbody and then your body can
perform at its peak and you canbe able to use that'cause in
order to take care of finances,it requires a lot of thinking
and brain power.
So you need that and I guesslike you said about physical
exercise and finances, it reallycomes down to just maintaining.
(42:10):
I think a lot of things in lifeis just about showing up
continuously
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (42:14):
That's it.
Mifrah Mahroof (42:15):
sometime it can be boring, but sometime it can
be very energizing and it's justreally going through the waves
that, it comes up and downreally.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (42:22):
That's it.
Yeah.
Mifrah Mahroof (42:24):
Awesome.
Okay.
And what's one book that'shelped you level up in your
life?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (42:28):
Ah, okay.
I think the one book that I'vebenefited a lot from and it
carries on with this theme of Iguess community connection and
mental health is a book calledThe Lost Connections.
And the book, essentially theauthor suffered from a lot of
depression and anxiety for manyyears, and he traveled the world
to try and understand why is itthat we've got more sort of
(42:52):
experts, more drugs, moreresearch and yet we are not
really, solving this epidemic ofdepression and anxiety around
the world.
And it's growing rapidlyeverywhere, especially in a lot
of advanced countries associatedwith loneliness.
And he found that those sort ofsix lost connections.
I won't spoil them for everyone.
I really encourage you to checkthat book out.
(43:12):
And maybe before can put it inthe show notes.
there's a couple that I'll justtalk about, and it's actually,
I'll just talk about one, thefirst one, which I think for me
resonated and I think a lot ofpeople from faith-based
communities or people who havean active participation even in
this very small way.
And that is the first connectionhe talks about that's been lost
is purpose.
As Muslims, we know from theQuran that we are not created
(43:34):
without purpose, and the Quranactually talks about three types
of purposes, right?
One is, of course, Ibadah andworshiping Allah SWT, but
another one is to be hisrepresentative.
And third one is about beingstewards and caretakers of the
earth.
in those dimensions.
I think cover many differentaspects and many different walks
of life.
Some people's purpose is takingcare of someone.
Some people's purpose is toserve the community.
(43:55):
Some people's purpose is tolead.
Some people's purpose is toeducate, So everyone's got a
purpose
Mifrah Mahroof (43:59):
the difference between the sorry, the
representative and thecaretaker?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (44:03):
Yeah the so the two different verses in the
Quran one talks about Khilafah,which is about vice Jarncy, and
the other one is aboutstewardship.
So one of our purposes is torepresent alone earth.
And that means to represent hisvalues his his commandments and
uphold that.
And that's a separate one tobeing a caretaker of the earth
that we've been sent here for aperiod of time.
(44:24):
We take care of the earth.
This the three purposes arereally well explained in is a
talk at the Festival of Faith byHamza Yusef.
I found that particular talkvery fascinating as well and
very beneficial.
But yeah, If we think of purposein a very broad sense and really
reconnecting to purpose.
We will find that we take everysingle moment with a gravity
(44:46):
that it deserves that, everybreath, every moment, every day.
We can just do that and we canfeel that we are part of a
bigger thing.
And I think when I go throughsome of the most difficult
periods in my life and a lot ofother people that I speak to,
it's that purpose to family, totheir own mission.
To society that's really helpedthem go through it a lot.
And the author talks a lot aboutthat.
That first connection, I thinkis something we can all connect
(45:07):
to.
I've used the word connect tous, but we can all take, I
guess, as Muslims and trying toget through all the noise around
the world that is out there.
And sometimes it can be verygloomy.
But Rosulullah SAW is someonewho lived a life of purpose and
he advocated for that.
And I think that if we wannalead a life of per purpose, we
take every moment, we take careof our health, and we take care
(45:27):
of our finances.
These, it naturally flows onfrom that.
Mifrah Mahroof (45:30):
Yeah.
And we're very blessed that weactually know our purpose
through our religion.
I guess it's like when we don'thave that, it's the mainstream
things in personal development.
It's oh, go find your purposeand this and that, and you just
go all over the place and you'reconstantly in pursuit of that
and Alhamdulillah, we have thisin our deen and broken down the
frameworks there and it's justup to us to really use that and
(45:52):
help us find how it is for us,Alhamdulillah.
It's been an absolute pleasurehaving you on the show, Tanvir.
Thank you so much.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (45:59):
Thank you so much, Mifrah.
It's been a real pleasurespeaking to you and you asked
some great questions.
I hope it's of benefit toeveryone.
In shaa Allah
Mifrah Mahroof (46:06):
Hey everyone, that wraps up another episode of
the Muslim Life Hackers podcast.
I really hope you enjoyed ourchat today and got some great
takeaways from it.
If you like what you heard anddon't want to miss out on our
next conversations, hit thatsubscribe button.
It really means a lot to us andhelps us grow the show.
And you know what?
If you're feeling extra generoustoday, drop us a review or a
rating.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
(46:28):
Thank you again for tuning inuntil next time, keep striving
and getting better every day.
So, I think it's something to think about
(00:01):
that, it's not just always aboutthe seeing the dollar signs and
making a lot of money.
As Muslims, we should be veryholistic in how we approach
things just as we, care aboutthe animals that we slaughter
for, meat consumption just as wethink about the ethics of
dealing with people and how wetreat them, it's not just about
a transactional relationship.
Mifrah Mahroof (00:19):
As-salamu alaykum and welcome to the
Muslim Life Hackers podcast.
I'm your host Mifrah Mahroof andthis is the podcast where we get
better every day.
Through conversations withexperts, leaders, and inspiring
individuals.
We're going to give youactionable insights to help you
win in this life and the next.
So if you're ready to level upin every area of your life and
(00:40):
you committed to living withexcellence for the sake of your
Lord.
You're in the right place.
Get ready for insights,inspiration, and a whole lot of
life hacks.
This is a Muslim Life Hackerspodcast.
Let's dive in.
As-salamu alaykum Tanvir,welcome to the show.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (00:56):
Thanks Mifrah.
Thanks for having me.
Mifrah Mahroof (00:57):
Well, thank you for coming on, and, I'm super
excited.
I know there's lots to learnfrom you.
First of all, for those whodon't know you, can you just
give me a quick introductionabout your background and what
you do?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (01:08):
Sure.
I am, a founder and, uh, CEO ofwholesome.
it's an impact investment,FinTech, uh, trying to make
investments obviously availablefor Muslims.
We work with Sharia advisors andscholars, to check the
underlying investments.
and also trying to benefit thegeneral community with accessing
more investments that align withobviously Sharia principles, but
(01:31):
also are out there to try andmake a positive difference in
the world.
in terms of my background, I amoriginally from Bangladesh, and
born there and raised inAustralia, in Sydney.
I've spent most of my careerworking at the intersection of
finance.
Technology and sustainabilityand a positive impact.
and I've done that throughworking from the grassroots with
(01:52):
farmers in Indonesia to workingon large solar farms with the
Islamic Development Bank.
And more recently, innovative,sustainability, fintechs like
Bright and, Vyro, which I alsowas a co-founder of.
That all led me down the path oftrying to empower communities
with finance and of course,making sure it's accessible to
more people such as Muslims whoare very keen about Sharia
(02:13):
compliance.
Trying to make those bridges andthose networks.
So that's in a nutshell aboutmyself.
Mifrah Mahroof (02:19):
Oh, MashaAllah.
so from what I understand, yourstartup is more towards
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (02:24):
So we can accept clients, investors from
around the world.
our license restricts us frombeing able to market as a
financial product.
it's a financial service isextremely regulated, and hence,
while of course, people arereally interested in it.
We can only market in Australia,Singapore, and New Zealand, but
we do accept clients from aroundthe world.
Mifrah Mahroof (02:41):
Oh, okay.
I didn't actually know that forsome reason I thought it was
just Australia, cause that's anassumption normally when you
hear about, Financial services,it's limited to the country.
Okay, so you mentioned thatpoint about empowering,
communities, financially, and Ithink it's a really interesting
way on how you're looking atmaking an empowerment.
So it's like financialempowerment.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (03:02):
Yeah.
my first experience with financeand also Islamic finance for
that matter, was working inIndonesia with farmers and it
really struck me that how asmall amount of money could
really free up.
People from the shackles ofpoverty and from debt bondage.
So the story of a Sharia isabout working with coconut sugar
(03:23):
farmers who were often in a debtrelationship with the trader
that purchased the harvest thatthey sold to, and the farmers
just needed a few hundreddollars to get out of that
bondage situation.
And that's where finance canunlock that by giving small
access to capital, they're ableto invest into their farm.
They can grow their farmoperations and harvest, and also
(03:44):
then provide a share of theprofits back to the investor who
provided that finance.
This is a key as it's afinancial empowerment for both
sides.
It's financial empowerment forinvestors because they are able
to invest in something that'sobviously halal, but also is
providing a commercial returnand it's financial empowerment
for the beneficiary who'sreceiving that finance to
(04:04):
undertake the activity that theyneed.
And this is the financialecosystem.
The purpose of finance, if wethink our banks, financial
institutions, other financialintermediaries, is to take money
from people who have extrasavings and wanting to make that
work for them.
And as in, get a financialreturn and connect them.
To people who need capital.
(04:24):
So borrowers and investors,entrepreneurs.
and that's the goal of thefinancial system.
But often that system is notworking in many countries around
the world, or it's not workingin certain communities.
here in Australia, for example,that Islamic financial system is
very limited.
We only have a few products.
There's yet to be, for example,Islamic insurance, so even
(04:45):
business finance, there's verylimited Islamic business finance
except for when you're doingvery large business operations.
If you're a small tradie or youwanna run a cafe shop, there's
actually no Islamic businessloans that are available outside
of very few limited offering.
So, the vision for Wholesum ishow do we provide empower for
both sides?
how do we do it in a halal way,and how do we do it in a way
(05:06):
that's positive for thecommunity, not supporting
activities that are harmful?
and ultimately, that creates anuplift for the entire community
and for the general public aswell.
Mifrah Mahroof (05:16):
Yeah, what you were saying reminds me of this,
statement I heard somewhere andthey were saying every dollar
that you spend builds the worldthat you wanna see.
So there's a direct impact on,where we put our money and how
that affects the world that weliving
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (05:33):
cause money can do positive things and it
can do negative things.
If we invest into, activitiesthat create jobs, reduce
environmental damage, empowercommunities, that's a positive
thing.
But also money can be used forharmful Things.
there's a lot of debate at themoment around climate change and
the need to direct funds to,away from fossil fuels and
investment into fossil fuelsthat create accessible climate
(05:55):
change.
There's of course also thediscussions and a lot of focus
right now with some conflictsaround the world, around
investment into companies thatpromote and use weapons and
particularly weapons exceedingdestructive nature.
That's all funded by capital,right?
Because those companies needmoney and they go and produce
factories, that produce weaponsand there's investors behind
(06:16):
them as well who are fuelingthat.
So yeah, finance can be used forgood and can be also used for
harm and we need to try andpromote more of the good.
Mifrah Mahroof (06:23):
Yeah, one thing that I don't notice much is, a
lot of conversations money,especially in the Muslim
community.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (06:29):
Yeah.
Mifrah Mahroof (06:29):
What are you though on that
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (06:30):
Yeah.
it's a really funny thing.
generally money seems to be abit of a taboo topic, or it
seems it's not something,
Mifrah Mahroof (06:37):
like you're the dunya or something.
something
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (06:39):
I've always been motivated by a lot of
figures in the Islamic history.
some of our scholars, Imam AbuHanifa, for example, being a
trader, Prophet SAW himself wasa trader and I think the general
gist from from their practicesis that the dunya, you keep it
in your hand and you use it.
For good, but you don't bring itinto the heart because you don't
(07:00):
want it to, misdirect you.
and to take you away fromultimately being the service of
a Allah SWT and the Ummah.
and you don't want that tocorrupt you and make you greedy
or becomes so stingy andmiserly.
So there's obviously at workingout that balance, but there's no
doubt that the dunya is veryimportant'cause it's a time that
we are here.
and through that we can do a lotof good.
(07:21):
So many people, if you thinkabout the biggest
philanthropists in the world,from the Bill Gates of the world
to some of the most commondonors within just our community
here.
They're using their wealth for abetter cause.
and I think that's veryaspirational and something that
we can all be inspired by.
So in the community there's ageneral sort of, I guess maybe a
spiritual conundrum aroundwealth and money.
and then it's also oh, youtalking about money, it seems
(07:45):
okay.
are you being greedy?
Are you always about money whenyou talk about it?
and that can creep up.
Unfortunately, the sinister sideof this, I mean, there's a lot
of sinister sides to this, whichI see.
And it has real world impacts.
So, for example, women, a lot ofwomen, are in financially
abusive relationships.
There's a lot of research aboutthis.
There's a Bangladeshi researcherthat I've been reading up
(08:05):
recently who's been doing workabout, women who've migrated
from Bangladesh to Australia andthe financially abusive
relationships that they end upwith.
I volunteer with a charitycalled the Rise Foundation, and
they provide.
job readiness training,financial literacy training for
women escaping, abusive,situations.
that's one example of where itcan be really sinister, and the
lack of awareness and lack offinancial independence is really
(08:27):
having an impact, but a lot ofyoung people are getting up into
last year a lot of people lostmoney during the crypto, winter
when it started.
And that's because a lot ofpeople didn't know about where
to invest and how to invest.
They Saw these tiktoks and theseapps and people were investing
in Bitcoin and supposedly makinga lot of money.
that's where it can be sinisteras well.
So we need to get to theforefront of this and understand
(08:48):
it.
And of course there's the halaleducation aspect as well.
And how do we invest in Halalway, so that ties in as another
layer to make it, perhaps evenmore complex, but also very
important.
Mifrah Mahroof (08:59):
Yeah, there are so many angles.
Like you can look at when itcomes to money, and especially
attitudes in our community.
Like for example, you actuallymentioned the thing about women
being in abusive situations andit's very common for me to hear
things like, okay, women don'tneed finances they have their
husband.
And those kind of conversations,which is quite
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (09:18):
I think, look, obviously a family unit is a
team.
and I think there's differenttypes of layers of our social
networks.
We've got our immediatefamilies, we've got our
neighbors and our communitywhere we live, and then as an
Ummah we can think of a globalcommunity as well.
There are important socialobligations that are there at
all levels, and a lot of themare mandated within Islamic law.
(09:40):
And of course We are living in acountry where we are very
fortunate that there's greatsafety nets and public welfare
as well.
So not withstanding all of that,things do go wrong.
Things people do fall throughthe cracks and I think it's an
obligation upon us asindividuals who look after the
people that are around us, butalso as a community to try and
help people.
Just at the very minimum, geteducated and understand, what
(10:02):
resources available and how theycan become empowered.
And then also creating theinfrastructure to support who do
fall through the cracks.
And that can happen, it's notalways the case that a husband
is doing the right thing bytheir wife, or a family is doing
the right thing by the peoplethat are within their care,
whether it be children andorphans.
And we know a lot about theprotection of orphans in the
Islamic tradition and howRosulullah SAW talked a lot.
(10:22):
I mean, he himself was an orphanand advocated a lot for orphans.
the bottom line is, I don'tthink we should take this for
granted.
and I tell this story a lot whenI got married I asked my wife do
you have any of your own wealth?
not to take advantage of it oranything.
I said, one of the things youneed to do is put that aside, as
your own little, wealth nest,and safety net for yourself.
and build upon that for your ownobject, for your own goals.
(10:44):
And obviously, that can be ofbenefit to the family, to the
community, to your own pursuits.
And the thing I got her to do,and she had no idea about this
was, to put some of her moneyinto a very long-term
investments via Islamic ETFs.
And these are very easyinstruments to buy through
brokerage accounts, and they'revery low maintenance because
once you purchase those ETFs,the idea is that they track the
(11:06):
market.
And we bought two particularETFs for her, in her name and in
her account.
and they're tracking the marketand doing really well and
doesn't require a lot of effort.
So these are small things likethat, that I believe really is
important.
I did a similar thing for mymother-in-Law.
my wife was telling me that mymother-in-Law, she works as a
childcare, taking care of coupleof children and she's
accumulated a little bit ofsavings, which she's not really
(11:27):
using, it's not part of herdaily needs.
And I said, yeah, same thing.
Put her into an investmentaccount.
we set it up with an Islamiccrowdfunding platform, based on
it's offshore.
and that's just providing aregular, double digit return for
her.
Through that process, and it'slow touch.
I really believe in that and Ithink empowering our community
and giving people, particularlypeople who are otherwise a bit
(11:47):
more vulnerable with options iskey.
Mifrah Mahroof (11:50):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
When you mentioned financialeducation like each person
knowing like what they can dowith their wealth, because I see
that very commonly with women aswell.
we have our wealth and it justsits there and we don't really
use it because I actually so Iwork in IT, so I have lots of
male colleagues and would tellme about what they would do with
(12:10):
their money and they're readilyinvesting it and they're really
making it work for them.
But whereas when with my femalefriends, which, yeah, it's just
sitting there and there's notreally any understanding what to
do with that money and even thatterm ETF, what is an ETF?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (12:25):
Yeah.
So an ETF is stands for ExchangeTraded Fund.
I've just fallen into the commonmistake, which is, of using all
these jargon and terms, which isin the finance world.
that's an example.
I'm an example of the problem
Mifrah Mahroof (12:38):
And the average person
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (12:39):
so I'm an example of problem there.
it's essentially, it's likepurchasing a share, that you can
purchase on any stock market orshare trading or brokering
account, but that particularshare, it's like a unit in a
fund that's managed by a fundmanager.
and they basically what they dowith your money is they invest
into many dozens, if nothundreds of companies.
(13:01):
so it's like by buying that oneunit in that one fund, I'm able
to get exposure to manydifferent companies.
and it saves me the headache andhassle of having to purchase
those individual company sharesmyself.
I'm relying on and I'm takingadvantage of the diversification
opportunity again, which ismeans that they're able to
(13:21):
invest into many companies andspread the risk, among that.
And so we are working, sothere's many Islamic fund
managers that provide, ExchangeTraded Funds or ETFs, there's
now a few listed on theAustralian Stock Exchange.
There's been a few on the USmarkets, also in Europe.
They're generally considered tobe a very simple and effective
way to invest.
(13:41):
Obviously everyone should readthe risk parameters and get
their own financial advice, butfor novice investors, it's a
relatively easy of getting intothe market, and in investing.
Making those pieces of knowledgeavailable.
So people can learn about whatother options out there, and
then obviously they can go backand talk to their financial
advisors and planners or reflecton it for themselves.
And it's also just a basicconcept to invest in the first
(14:04):
place.
Why should we even invest?
what does investing mean in aperson's broader financial
decision?
sort of matrix.
they've gotta think aboutobviously how much, and it
starts with things likebudgeting and how much am I
budgeting and how much am Isaving?
what are my goals?
Goals for myself, my family,children, perhaps charities as
well.
What are my goals in the shortterm and the long term?
(14:25):
And so these are sorts ofconversations that are really
important and we're often caughtup in the day-to-day, and we
don't think about it, but that'simportant.
'Cause now inflation is reallyhigh, so if we are not putting
our money away to productiveuse.
If we're just sitting in a bankor just sitting there not doing
anything, we are potentiallylosing value on our wealth.
which can be a big problembecause cost of living is rising
(14:46):
around the world, particularlyin Australia.
We're feeling it, and we need toget ahead of that inflation
problem.
Otherwise, we'll have less andless money.
Mifrah Mahroof (14:53):
Okay.
So I want you to take me throughthis then.
if someone were to be getting apaycheck, say they're getting
like$5,000, right?
And it comes in, what do they dowith that wealth at that point?
that down, for
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (15:06):
there's many different, to answer that
question, of course, we have tolook at a whole range of
different aspects of people'scircumstances, but we talk
generally.
Mifrah Mahroof (15:13):
The average basic in person that
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (15:16):
The first thing a common sort of hack that
I've read about and seen inmany, financial, budgeting
resources.
and of the financial gurus thatI've read about, they talk about
the 80 20 rule, which is, youshould think about your money as
being, you know that$5,000 likebing a pie, and if you think
about it's five slices, oneslice every month, you should
(15:38):
look at a way to automatetransfer into a savings and
investment account.
So you get your paycheck intoyour main account, and have that
automatically transferred out.
So from that$5,000, looking atroughly about a thousand dollars
that you'll be putting intosavings and investment, the
other$4,000.
You should have a very clearbudget around what you can spend
(16:00):
on.
And of course, you've got yourbasics that you need.
You might have rent, you'll havegroceries, you've got, fuel and
other transport costs.
and putting aside then otherbudgets, things like, so you
know exactly how much you'regonna spend on leisure that
week.
So don't go over that budget.
how much you might put aside fordonations and charities.
And that's also a good practiceto have, how much you might put
(16:20):
aside for family and otherincidentals.
Maybe a bit of an emergencybuffer as well.
Something unforeseen might comeup.
family members drop by or, youmight need to go and visit
someone.
You're gonna take a gift forthem.
All of that, within that$4,000.
so it's very clear, and ifthere's any excess at the end of
the month, you'll put that backinto your savings as well.
So let's say now that's the4,000 done.
(16:42):
You're left with that a thousanddollars without a thousand
dollars.
You'll put that towards aninvestment goal.
Now, ideally, you'll put it, youwould've already worked out your
investment plan and savingsgoals ahead of time.
And what that means is you lookat your short term, your medium
term, and your long term.
So what I often tell people isthat.
Mifrah Mahroof (17:01):
Okay.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (17:01):
Your money.
If you think about it as a stackof cash, almost visualize it,
that stack of cash that youhave, that's all your savings.
The way you look at every dollaron that stack of cash is going
to be different.
Some of that stack of cash is, Ineed it for an upcoming expense,
that's very in the foreseeablefuture, it could be big or
(17:22):
small, but there'd be somethingthat's coming up.
Like for example, I might have acar insurance payment that I've
gotta make.
I've gotta do the rego on my caragain, or I know that I have my
quarterly electricity billcoming up.
It's a typically a short termthing.
It could be within three monthsto six months maybe.
So I need to know what that is,and I need to plan for it
beforehand so it doesn'tsurprise me.
(17:44):
So I'm gonna put some moneyaside from now leading up to
that.
Right?
And if it's gonna happen inthree months, I might be saving
a bit.
Mifrah Mahroof (17:50):
Yeah.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (17:51):
Month by month or I might be using some of the
money that I've already gotsaved.
I'm gonna say, this is alreadyearmarked.
I've kept it aside.
I'm not gonna do it for anythingelse'cause I've got something
that's coming very quickly.
So that's your short term.
Then there's gonna be a part ofyour money stack, that is, for
medium term purposes.
So, for example, when my parentswere planning for Hajj, they
(18:12):
started putting some money asideand it was a three year kind of
planning process.
'cause, Hajj has become reallyexpensive now.
and they knew that money theyneeded to put it aside for Hajj
and because.
They really wanted to go toHajj.
They didn't wanna risk it byputting it towards anything
else, and they actually didn'twant to invest it anywhere.
They put it, aside until theyleave for Hajj.
(18:33):
And then you've got like goalsthat might be three to five
years.
So, for example, a lot of peoplethat I speak to, especially
young people, they've reallylike to get into the property
market, get their first home.
so that's often a common thing.
Some people wanna save formarriage, some people wanna save
for a big trip.
some people wanna save forstarting a business.
And so that money is notimmediate.
(18:54):
So it's not oh, I've gotta keepspend it like in the next year.
But it's not so distant that youcan forget about it either.
So what if, for those kind ofmedium term plans, we often need
to put it into some investmentswith a shorter term horizon,
typically.
Something that will have, it'llprovide a return.
'cause obviously you don't wantto sitting around doing nothing.
'cause again, we talked aboutinflation.
(19:15):
you'd wanna have the ability toliquidate, which means pull your
money out back from thatinvestment into your own,
accounts or savings or cashform, relatively quickly and
easily.
And you want to have, investmentreturns that are not too
volatile because investments canbe very volatile.
And if it's gonna be down oneyear, you're gonna wanna hold
(19:36):
onto it longer so that you cannot only get back to positive,
but you can make up for theperiod that you lost money.
So you wanna think about thoseinvestments that fit that
particular objective.
Mifrah Mahroof (19:48):
what are some examples of that when you think
about it?
like examples that are, uh,compliant, like suitable for for
our values and as being Muslimsand stuff.
'cause I know that there'sproducts and things there, for
the Muslims it's kind of hard
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (20:02):
Absolutely.
I guess it'd be helpful to gofrom that spectrum.
So what are the very short terminvestment options all the way
towards longer term investmentoptions?
Mifrah Mahroof (20:10):
Okay.
let's hear it.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (20:12):
When you're looking at very short term, you
are generally looking for, andI'll talk about what are the
criteria that one looks for.
So the criteria for short termis very liquid.
You can pull it out quickly'cause you need it.
It's not volatile.
So very stable.
The value's not gonna go up anddown and you want it to be Very
safe.
So safe means from a financeperspective, either someone's
(20:33):
provided a guarantee, and I'lltalk about what that means or,
the investments themselves ofbacked up by very strong
security, very strongprotections.
So what guarantee means is thatthere is a protection, a legal
protection, to maintain thevalue of that investment.
There is only one Type ofinvestment that's guaranteed.
(20:56):
And that is a bank account up to$250,000.
How is that guaranteed?
It is guaranteed by the depositinsurance scheme, which is a
government initiative backed upby ultimately taxpayers.
So the government will step inif a bank, a licensed bank in
Australia was to Go Cap puts,your savings in that bank
(21:18):
account up to$250,000 isguaranteed.
The government through taxpayermoney will pay back up to
250,000.
Now if you have more than that,it's not guaranteed.
Now, there was a case, in Greecea couple of years ago during
their financial crisis and someAustralian Greeks lost a lot of
money because those Greek banksweren't under, and they didn't
have a lot of capitalprotection.
(21:40):
So I think a lot of people thinkthat, oh, my money in the bank
is safe.
Actually, your money in the bankis safe only up to$250,000.
Mifrah Mahroof (21:46):
one.
Yeah.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (21:47):
Now, generally speaking.
Mifrah Mahroof (21:49):
amount.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (21:49):
There hasn't been a major bank collapse in
decades, if not for over ahundred years.
I'll just correct me on thatone.
and so banks are generally verysafe, as place to keep your
money.
But here's the conundrum forMuslims.
There are no Islamic banks.
So there are no banks inAustralia that provide a Halal
investment return.
And we are not meant to be,taking the interest as income.
(22:11):
it's not permitted.
Mifrah Mahroof (22:12):
Yeah, because you hear from a lot of financial
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (22:14):
Yeah, so the problem we have as Muslims in
Australia, and this needs to besolved, and obviously there are
initiatives like the IslamicBank of Australia that's trying
to work to solve this problem.
But currently, as of today,there are no halal Islamic bank
investment options.
So what's the next best option?
The next best option is to putit into a few Islamic finance
(22:36):
companies that offer, short terminvestment opportunities.
What I mean by short term is youcan put your money in and you
can pull it out relativelyquickly.
You can't pull it out as quickas a bank.
Like I can't pull it outtomorrow or tonight.
But they'll have a usually ashort window of up to 30 days.
So I know Icfa, for example, hasa 30 day callback.
MCCA has a similar one.
(22:56):
Now, the thing I wanna point outthough is these are really the
next best thing.
They are not guaranteed.
So there is risk andunfortunately without a bank, we
can't have that capitalguarantee.
So that's on the short term.
So short term companies likeIcfa, MCCA, a couple of these
players will provide a shortterm financing.
Now, if you are willing toventure outside Australia, you
(23:19):
could open up a savings bankaccount with Islamic banks
globally.
So some people are dual citizen.
They have bank accounts inBangladesh, Pakistan, UAE,
Malaysia, other places, someIslamic banks might also allow
international account holders.
Again, you'll have to look it upand see the risks and
parameters.
Obviously, that then attractsnew risks like currency risks.
(23:40):
If I put my money in and theAustralian dollar appreciates,
then the value of that accountwill drop.
So again, you'll have to lookinto those factors.
Then moving along the spectrum abit now towards medium term
investments, of course you'vegot short-term investment funds.
Hijaz has one.
and, uh, Icfa, MCC also haveshort-term income funds, which
you can invest into.
(24:00):
These are managed funds andthey're licensed under
Australian, ASIC regulations asmoney managed investment
schemes.
These are not eTFs.
these are just managed fund.
What that means is they'reessentially pulling.
So wholesome, my company's alsoa managed fund.
We bring people put their moneyin, like they pull it together
into a fund.
And the fund issues units todifferent investors based on how
(24:23):
much they've put money in.
So someone's put in, a thousanddollars,$10,000 of them will
have.
Units representing the number ofamount of money that money comes
in, and the fund manager'sresponsibility is to invest it
according to the investmentmandate.
So whenever a person joins amanaged fund, they sign a
contract.
And that contract is usually, ifit's a retail investment fund,
(24:45):
it's called a product disclosurestatement.
If it's a wholesum investmentfund, which is like us, it's
called an informationmemorandum.
I always advise people that makesure you read that and
understand that because it'lloutline very important.
Points, what are the fees, whatare the risks?
what are they investing in?
and how is that working?
a lot of people are surprised bysome of these things.
(25:06):
'cause they think they'regetting into something and they
don't really know.
And later on they get stung byfees or they get stung by
saying, oh, I thought that theinvestment fund was doing this,
but actually it's doingsomething else.
So it's important to read up andunderstand those and speak to
someone.
if you don't understand thedocuments, speak to someone who
can help you, read them.
So in the medium term horizon,there's a lot of investment
funds, ourselves, hijaz, acouple of other players do that.
(25:28):
and again, you need to look at,read, each fund will have a
different parameter, right?
So some of them are more towardsshort term, some are more
towards longer term.
and the longer term and shortterm will often be determined by
what they're investing into.
So if a managed fund isinvesting into, equities or
shares in companies.
Typically you are looking at alonger term horizon, like maybe
three, if not especially fiveplus years, because stock market
(25:51):
prices are gonna go up and down.
They'll be up of one month.
They might be down the nextmonth.
Mifrah Mahroof (25:56):
Three to years
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (25:57):
that's generally considered medium.
I'll get to the really longerterm in a moment.
now again, it'll depend on thenature of the companies as well.
If you're gonna invest intoprimarily, what they call blue
chip stocks.
So blue chip stocks are thelargest, most profitable, the
most successful companies, inAustralia.
There might be BHP bulletin.
(26:18):
they might be, for example,pharmacy chains or hospital
groups, like Ramsey.
Or they might be, Telstra.
As a telco, these are very solidcompanies.
They are very profitable, sothey are fairly, they're
relatively safe, in the mediumterm.
Now, if you're gonna invest intocompanies that are small,
they're growing, they're morerisky.
(26:38):
and so the return that you mightrealize on them in the short
term, it might be quite, itcould even be negative, but then
you are thinking, okay, if Ihold onto that company in the
long term.
They're gonna turn a profit andI'm gonna be okay.
So again, you're gonna have toread into the details of who
those managed funds areinvesting into to appreciate the
risk reward parametersparticularly for you.
(26:58):
And that will also determine howlong or short term you can hold
it.
So you've got managed funds andthe instruments in the short
term.
Then moving along, If we look atthe longer term, so let's say 5,
6, 7 plus years beyond that,you're looking at the space of
venture capital funds, you'relooking at the space of property
(27:18):
investment funds, and you'relooking into the space of more
sort of, You like more volatile,more risky assets, including,
for example, startups, small capcompanies.
so companies that are verysmall, they are really going for
moonshots or they're going for avery long term strategy.
there's no easy pathway for themin the short term.
So for example,
Mifrah Mahroof (27:40):
Yeah.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (27:41):
A lot of startups are like that, they
might not make any money forseven to 10 years, but they're
growing, building a product,iterating, and So you've gotta
really hold out your money for along term before you make a
profit.
But also it's also not liquid.
What that means is I can't justquickly pull my money out
tomorrow.
Why?
Because startups, andparticularly venture capital
funds, they invest in startups.
(28:01):
Those startups are taking moneyand they're investing into the
product.
They're not ready to pay adividend.
Definitely.
And the only way you can makemoney from'em is when that
company might list on the stockmarket.
So either, otherwise known asthe initial price offering or
IPO, you hear that a lot.
or the company gets bought outby another company and when they
buy it out, they pay out all theshareholders, which includes
(28:22):
yourself.
You might be an investor inthem, so they're not very
liquid.
Property is also not liquidbecause you gotta sell the
property to get the money out.
And that you gotta, and knowingthe property cycle a bit tricky.
It might be a five, seven yearcycle.
so investing requires one tomatch up.
the time horizon with the riskand the liquidity situation and
(28:43):
ultimately your objectives.
I've just given a flavor of afew investment options.
There are obviously a lot moreout there.
But of course there is a generalchallenge for Muslim investors
in Australia.
There really isn't a lot of theinstruments and options that are
available to the general publicare not as much available
Muslims, because they're justnot as many Islamic, funds or
Islamic entrepreneurs.
What we really need is moreentrepreneurs to get out there
(29:05):
and create products, we need tocreate new investment vehicles.
A part of wholesum's vision iswe wanna, started with
investment management becausewhat we wanted to do was start
with funds management, to getcapital in and through that we
can start innovating with newproducts and services.
I mentioned that we don't have alot of Islamic financing
products, personal loans, carloans, business loans, and all
(29:27):
sorts of other products likethat and insurance.
So what we wanted to do was totry and start to build that
bridge to create more productsin the community so that we can
help more people
Mifrah Mahroof (29:36):
All right, So one of the things that I wanted
to ask you, so we actually spokeabout different types of
investing and I also wanted toget around, get on the topic of
crypto actually, because it'ssomething that a lot of people
speak about as an investment andwant to know what your thoughts
are on this.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (29:53):
Yeah, sure.
So
tanvir--dr-_3_02-19-2024_0914 (29:55):
I mean,
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (29:55):
cryptocurrency investments has become a
completely new type of assetclass that just didn't exist
five, 10 years ago and becamereally popularized with a number
of exchanges.
I think there's two things tonote about crypto.
One is that there are, like, theunderlying technology is quite
fascinating and if you thinkabout the blockchain and what
it's enabling and how it makesthe speed of transfers and the
(30:18):
ease of converting into digitalassets and back is quite
remarkable.
There are some use cases incertain countries.
There are it is probably one ofthe most legitimate and easily
accessible ways to invest andsave you money, but also
transfer.
If you think about in countrieswhere the financial system isn't
as robust or it's not as easy toinvest into other assets,
(30:38):
especially if you have a smallamount of money and you're in
remote locations.
My sort of, take on cryptoinvesting, particularly where
there are real assets and it's alot easier to access.
And what I mean by real assetsare you can take small amounts
of investments in property orstock market or ETFs or put it
into funds when you have thoseaccessible options out there, it
(31:00):
is really important to diversifyand what's happened for a lot of
Muslims.
Where they aren't aware aboutalternative investments or they
they don't have a lot of moneyto invest in.
There was a huge allocation froma lot of, especially a lot of
millennials into crypto over thelast couple of years,
particularly just before thecrypto winter where, and what's
(31:20):
called the crypto is basicallywhere the prices or value of
major cryptocurrencies droppeddramatically.
So a lot of people lost money,so I think that's for one thing
to be very careful about.
But for me, there's anotherreally practical reason, and I
guess this is why when I've setup my fund and the philosophy
behind our fund is we wanted toinvest into assets.
(31:40):
Particularly investing intosmall and medium businesses and
microfinance because they have adirect tangible benefit in
society.
They're creating jobs, they'rehelping reduce inequality when
you're investing into crypto.
Whilst it's a legitimate asset,it's not clear where the
proceeds are directly having apositive benefit.
And that to me is why personallyI don't invest in crypto.
(32:01):
Because I'd rather have myinvestments do something
positive and have a directimpact.
So I think it's something tothink about that, it's not just
always about the seeing thedollar signs and making a lot of
money.
As Muslims, we should be veryholistic in how we approach
things just as we care about theanimals that we slaughter for
meat consumption.
Just as we think about theethics of dealing with people
and how we treat them, it's notjust about a transactional
(32:22):
relationship.
We should approach our money andhow we make money where we
invest money in a holisticframework.
And, the Quran talks aboutThayyib and being wholesum with
not just halal, but wholesum andalso like being wholesum in a
very holistic sense and a verybroad societal sense.
Mifrah Mahroof (32:38):
Yeah, that's a fair point when you look at it
that way, because I guess whenpeople look at crypto or what's
talked about around crypto, it'sokay, you can make the most
money out of it or something,although that's very subjective.
But I guess coming back to ourIslamic principles, which is the
most important thing, isactually seeing what is that
money going to be doing to ourworld?
How is that gonna improve ourworld?
(32:59):
And I see where your comingfrom.
So ideally we should be thinkingabout ways on how we can grow
our wealth, but also grow theworld as well, because that's
our responsibility as caretakersof the world.
And very important point thatyou brought up.
Okay.
Now since you spoke about thosedifferent asset classes, crypto,
now I wanna know go back a biton earlier when you spoke about
(33:22):
asset allocation and what woulda person do practically when
they actually get their jobsalary, and what do you actually
do with that?
Do you need to actually sit downand write down a budget and
write down what your expensesare and then try to stick to it
or is there like a percentage orwhat are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (33:41):
Yeah, no, sure.
I'll share some practicalpoints.
It is really important to have avery good understanding of
basically what's called cashinflows, which is money coming
in to a person's account ortheir household.
Rather, we often as Muslims, welive in families typically.
And we need to consider aboutthe family responsibility,
whether it be, adults andchildren, grandparents.
(34:02):
So cash inflows coming in andalso cash outflows, which are
where the money is beingallocated and spent to.
And one of the things there'stwo kind of concepts that I
always think a lot about and Italk to people about.
One is, The prophet's cousin henot only do we know him as a
deeply spiritual person, amilitary leader, a political
leader, but he also was known tobe a successful financial
(34:24):
planner and someone whoorganized wealth and managed
that really well.
There's a particular sayingthat's often attributed to him,
which is that he used to saythat you should prepare like you
could die at any time.
And that's coming from thatspiritual perspective that,
death can be as
Mifrah Mahroof (34:37):
So your finances, you
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (34:38):
no.
As in prepare for death becausewe could leave the world at any
time.
So we should always try and begood and we should try and be
prepared that our balance ofgood deeds is outweighing our
bad deeds.
But he said in terms of whenyou're living the world and
you're managing your financesand you're managing your
responsibility to society.
Imagine like you're gonna liveforever.
And what that means is, and whatpeople interpret it as is that,
(35:02):
we need our resources to lastfor us.
We don't wanna become dependentin society.
We don't wanna be in an old agewhere we like begging people for
resources and money.
We should think okay, if I'mgonna live forever in a sort
metaphoric sense what am Idoing?
I'm producing, I'm beingproductive and I'm being useful
to society.
I'm not becoming a burden inthat sense.
And so that comes down tofinancial planning and how we
(35:23):
think about allocating ourresources today, so that it can
last in the future.
How are we earning money todayso that we have enough to invest
and save for the future?
So that's one thing.
The other thing is RosulullahSAW used to make a lot of dua
around debt and, there's so manyHadith talking about debt.
Particularly there was a casewhere someone.
had a debt and he was hesitatingto pray the Jenazah over that
(35:44):
person to someone that person'sdebt.
And that's because debt is aburden.
It's a burden on a person, butalso can cause rifts between
people and between societies.
So if we weigh those two kind ofconcepts up I'll talk about some
principles from budget.
So let's say I've got$5,000 20%of that, or$1,000.
I should immediately from my paypacket, I should think about,
(36:05):
okay, I'm gonna put this asidefor savings and that's going to
be money that I'm gonna putaside for the future.
I might invest it, I might justleave it into account because I
might have an expense coming upin the future.
So I'm already starting to thinkabout my future planning, right?
So 20% there, then the bulk ofour expenses should be for the
most essentials, we need to makesure our essentials taken care
(36:26):
of.
If we don't take care of ouressentials and we start spending
on things that are lessessential then we're not taking
care of the most importantthings, whether it be our
families, our basic sort ofliving items like shelter and
food and clothing.
So probably 40% would beallocated to that then another
20%.
And is to help us pay off anyits existing obligations and
(36:47):
they might be debts that we haveincurred.
And again, coming back to thatprinciple, the Prophet SAW was
really cautious about debt.
It's not forbidden to take debt,but.
If we want to follow thatguidance, we wanna try and
minimize our debt.
And for a lot of people theremight be debts associated with
student debt.
People might have taken outcredit cards, this'cause they
were trying to pay for somethingthat became unexpected or there
(37:09):
might be other types of, debtrelationships that one has
entered into, whether it be ahome finance or a car finance.
So that would be another 20%.
And then the final 20% are forthings that are short term in
nature.
They might be a bit of leisure.
They might be for thoseadditional things that pop up
every now and then.
You've got family visiting, youmight want to go visit someone
and buy them gifts.
(37:29):
You might go take your familyout every now and then to eat
out for a coffee.
So for those sort ofdiscretionary and less essential
items.
So that's roughly a frameworkthat one can apply.
Obviously circumstances willchange and everyone's situations
a little bit different, but atleast getting to the mindset of
every time.
Setting up budget at thebeginning of the year
(37:49):
particularly.
'cause you'll know things like,okay, what my income's gonna be
for the year.
And you can obviously tweak itacross the way, but setting that
up and monitoring and adjustingas you go along.
Am I spending too much?
Am I spending too less?
What's going on?
Can I invest more?
How's my investment performancegoing?
Can I perhaps.
Allocate a bit more in the nextcouple of months to take
advantage of this currentinvestment opportunity.
(38:10):
Then maybe in the next fewmonths, I'll just dial it back.
So it's just having a verypractical and pragmatic way of
monitoring ourselves on aregular basis.
And just keeping ourselvesaccountable.
At the end of the day, it's justabout accountability.
What we don't wanna be ishedonistic, that's the crux of
what Rosulullah SAW and Ali r.a.
is messages.
We don't wanna treat our wealthlike.
You know, it'sothing that wetake it for granted.
(38:31):
We wanna be proactive, and thatproactivity comes back from a
very spiritual perspectivebecause we want to be grateful
for Allah SWT's given us, and wewant to be responsible towards
our families and our society,and that requires us to be on
top of it.
Mifrah Mahroof (38:47):
Yeah, that's true when you actually put the
spiritual frameworks in it, likethinking that, okay, if we can
die any moment, I should do theright things with my wealth, be
ethical and all thoseprinciples, and then think long
term so that we don't become aburden on our societies or we
don't, we live such a hard lifewhen we, retire and that income
goes away or anything.
And it's really sad to see whenyou see people who have retired
(39:09):
and they didn't think abouttheir long-term finances when
they were younger.
And now they're really at themercy of their children or
society if they don't have anychildren or even if they did
have children and the childrendidn't want help or things like
that.
And it's one it's very sad tosee,
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (39:23):
It is
Mifrah Mahroof (39:24):
All right, so we're actually nearing the end
of the interview and very, a lotof interesting points that we
covered on.
Now I actually want to knowabout your life hack actually.
So what's actually one life hackthat has helped you improve your
life, whether that be infinances or just your life in
general?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (39:43):
I think that one particular thing when I've
been on top of this particularactivity I've really reaped the
benefits and when I haven't,everything else seems to have
started to fall apart a littlebit or not have not as been as
great.
And that is A regular physicalexercise or activity regimen.
The thing that I started pickingup doing when I moved back to
(40:03):
Australia from Saudi Arabia wasrunning whatever your activity
might be, whether it's running,whether it's gardening, whether
you do a lot of walking.
But it's really, I think thatphysical exercise and having a
regularity to it is so key.
What I found that was beneficialwas when I started running, I
not only started to, fix myweight and my sort of, even in
(40:23):
terms of just moving the body,getting the heart flow going.
But I started to see a lot ofreally great benefits for
everything else.
My, my mental health was a lotbetter.
I had more sort of optimism andmore energy to do other things.
And likewise when I've droppedit, so there's in periods where
I'm running really well.
Then I get a little bit sick andI'm out of that habit.
Then I start feeling sluggish.
(40:43):
I start feeling stressed.
Anything starts to irritate me.
And I'm like, okay, this is athing that's dropped.
I need to get back onto it.
And one, I've realized was thatit just started helping give me
a good structure to my day.
So for example, if I'm going tobe traveling out to work
somewhere.
I would usually run in themorning feel really good, and
then I'll do my day or I woulddo like a solid stint of work in
(41:03):
the morning and take a break atlunch to go for a run, come
back, energize, continue theday.
So it just sets a really goodregime.
and, you feel a lot good aboutyourself as well.
Especially even with finances,like one of the things is about
momentum and what you wanna dois just keep at the momentum.
It's not about, like forrunning.
It's not like I've gotta be aunder two hours, under three
hours marathon runner, but it'sjust that small steps, that
(41:25):
regular steps.
And coming back to RosulullahSAW advice about taking the
moderate path and being veryconsistent.
So that's something a hack thatI find a lot of benefit and a
lot of other people that Iadmire, people who seem to be
doing really well with theirfinances or with their careers.
I find that's one of the mostcommon threads.
They have a regular exerciseregime.
that's something that yeah, I,I'll definitely encourage.
Mifrah Mahroof (41:48):
Yeah, I guess it just really comes down to when
you fulfill the rights of yourbody and then your body can
perform at its peak and you canbe able to use that'cause in
order to take care of finances,it requires a lot of thinking
and brain power.
So you need that and I guesslike you said about physical
exercise and finances, it reallycomes down to just maintaining.
(42:10):
I think a lot of things in lifeis just about showing up
continuously
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (42:14):
That's it.
Mifrah Mahroof (42:15):
sometime it can be boring, but sometime it can
be very energizing and it's justreally going through the waves
that, it comes up and downreally.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (42:22):
That's it.
Yeah.
Mifrah Mahroof (42:24):
Awesome.
Okay.
And what's one book that'shelped you level up in your
life?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (42:28):
Ah, okay.
I think the one book that I'vebenefited a lot from and it
carries on with this theme of Iguess community connection and
mental health is a book calledThe Lost Connections.
And the book, essentially theauthor suffered from a lot of
depression and anxiety for manyyears, and he traveled the world
to try and understand why is itthat we've got more sort of
(42:52):
experts, more drugs, moreresearch and yet we are not
really, solving this epidemic ofdepression and anxiety around
the world.
And it's growing rapidlyeverywhere, especially in a lot
of advanced countries associatedwith loneliness.
And he found that those sort ofsix lost connections.
I won't spoil them for everyone.
I really encourage you to checkthat book out.
(43:12):
And maybe before can put it inthe show notes.
there's a couple that I'll justtalk about, and it's actually,
I'll just talk about one, thefirst one, which I think for me
resonated and I think a lot ofpeople from faith-based
communities or people who havean active participation even in
this very small way.
And that is the first connectionhe talks about that's been lost
is purpose.
As Muslims, we know from theQuran that we are not created
(43:34):
without purpose, and the Quranactually talks about three types
of purposes, right?
One is, of course, Ibadah andworshiping Allah SWT, but
another one is to be hisrepresentative.
And third one is about beingstewards and caretakers of the
earth.
in those dimensions.
I think cover many differentaspects and many different walks
of life.
Some people's purpose is takingcare of someone.
Some people's purpose is toserve the community.
(43:55):
Some people's purpose is tolead.
Some people's purpose is toeducate, So everyone's got a
purpose
Mifrah Mahroof (43:59):
the difference between the sorry, the
representative and thecaretaker?
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (44:03):
Yeah the so the two different verses in the
Quran one talks about Khilafah,which is about vice Jarncy, and
the other one is aboutstewardship.
So one of our purposes is torepresent alone earth.
And that means to represent hisvalues his his commandments and
uphold that.
And that's a separate one tobeing a caretaker of the earth
that we've been sent here for aperiod of time.
(44:24):
We take care of the earth.
This the three purposes arereally well explained in is a
talk at the Festival of Faith byHamza Yusef.
I found that particular talkvery fascinating as well and
very beneficial.
But yeah, If we think of purposein a very broad sense and really
reconnecting to purpose.
We will find that we take everysingle moment with a gravity
(44:46):
that it deserves that, everybreath, every moment, every day.
We can just do that and we canfeel that we are part of a
bigger thing.
And I think when I go throughsome of the most difficult
periods in my life and a lot ofother people that I speak to,
it's that purpose to family, totheir own mission.
To society that's really helpedthem go through it a lot.
And the author talks a lot aboutthat.
That first connection, I thinkis something we can all connect
(45:07):
to.
I've used the word connect tous, but we can all take, I
guess, as Muslims and trying toget through all the noise around
the world that is out there.
And sometimes it can be verygloomy.
But Rosulullah SAW is someonewho lived a life of purpose and
he advocated for that.
And I think that if we wannalead a life of per purpose, we
take every moment, we take careof our health, and we take care
(45:27):
of our finances.
These, it naturally flows onfrom that.
Mifrah Mahroof (45:30):
Yeah.
And we're very blessed that weactually know our purpose
through our religion.
I guess it's like when we don'thave that, it's the mainstream
things in personal development.
It's oh, go find your purposeand this and that, and you just
go all over the place and you'reconstantly in pursuit of that
and Alhamdulillah, we have thisin our deen and broken down the
frameworks there and it's justup to us to really use that and
(45:52):
help us find how it is for us,Alhamdulillah.
It's been an absolute pleasurehaving you on the show, Tanvir.
Thank you so much.
Dr. Tanvir Uddin (45:59):
Thank you so much, Mifrah.
It's been a real pleasurespeaking to you and you asked
some great questions.
I hope it's of benefit toeveryone.
In shaa Allah
Mifrah Mahroof (46:06):
Hey everyone, that wraps up another episode of
the Muslim Life Hackers podcast.
I really hope you enjoyed ourchat today and got some great
takeaways from it.
If you like what you heard anddon't want to miss out on our
next conversations, hit thatsubscribe button.
It really means a lot to us andhelps us grow the show.
And you know what?
If you're feeling extra generoustoday, drop us a review or a
rating.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
(46:28):
Thank you again for tuning inuntil next time, keep striving
and getting better every day.
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