Al Rayan Bank’s UK roots go back to 2004 and is the UK’s oldest and largest Sharia compliant retail bank. It is by far the most well-known Islamic Bank in the UK with it winning 2019 Best UK Islamic Bank amongst a whole host of other awards. Starting out as the Islamic Bank of Britain, it grew rapidly in its early days with the bank generating £1bn in assets in just over 10 years.
It was taken over in 2014 by the Masarf Al Rayan group and consequentially changed its name to Al Rayan Bank. Heavily involved with local communities Al Rayan Bank is known for it’s sponsorships across a range of activities from events such as the Muslim Lifestyle Expo to sports teams such as Leicestershire County Cricket Club.
Al Rayan Bank offers a comprehensive suite of products for its UK customers and this article will highlight the savings accounts that are currently available as well as a review of the set up process.
Al Rayan Savings Accounts
The savings accounts and their expected profit/loss rates (click here to understand more about Profit-and-Loss) offered by Al Rayan differ by how readily you want to access your money. These range from immediate access to giving 90 days’ notice. The longer the notice required to access your savings the better the rate provided.
| Account Name | Profit / Loss Rate | Minimum Balance | Days Notice to Access Savings |
| Everyday Saver | 0.80% Gross per annum | £500 | Immediate |
| 60 Days Notice Account | 1.00% gross per annum | £250 | 60 Days |
| 90 Days Notice Account | No longer Offered | N/A | N/A |
The above table shows a summary of the main savings accounts Al Rayan Bank offers in the UK. These can be used in a variety of ways depending on your circumstances. For instance you might want to keep your emergency fund in the everyday account where the main need would be for immediate access. Whereas long term savings might be suited to the 60 day notice accounts.
The rates shown are very similar to what returns you’d recieve in a conventional interest bearing savings accounts. In fact, between August – October 2019 a market busting everyday saver account offered a profit/loss rate of 1.60%. However this was discontinued due to phenomenal demand for the product and has since gone down to 0.80% as indicated above.
The 1.60% rate was a market leading rate at the time – hopefully this rate returns soon! For those that applied during the 2 months it was available, well done for being quick!
There are no additional perks with any of the accounts such as referral bonuses or cashback offers.
Accessibility
Setting up accounts can be cumbersome if you have no history with them. Al Rayan sends you plenty of documents to fill in and read but once you have it all set up, opening additional products with Al Rayan is relatively straight forward. However, I’ve personally had several issues with the bank in the past from very delayed email responses to opening up double accounts for me and not closing them.
Branches: With Al Rayan Bank being set up over 10 years ago it pre dates mobile banking and is a firmly established bricks and mortar organization. Branches exist across the UK in several major cities; London, Birmingham, Manchester, Luton, Bradford and Glasgow. Locations of the branches can be found here.
App: The modern day requires all banking institutions to have a slick and easy to use app and Al Rayan Bank offers one for both Android and iOS. Their first foray into producing an app had been available for some time but frankly was terrible. It was essentially just a copy of the website.
In February 2020 their app was revamped and since March 2020 Al Rayan Bank has made downloading their app a mandatory step for new and existing customers who want to access online banking. I don’t understand the reason for this as there are plenty of people who only access online banking via their desktop and it really has irked a lot of people. The mandatory download generally received negative feedback on the app stores with plenty of scathing reviews posted. Additional issues with the app relate to how it fails to recognize photo ID as well as freezing at the log in screen.
While there are improvements I can suggest such as displaying the total you have with the bank (handy if you have more than one product), it ticks the basic boxes you need from a banking app e.g. statement downloads and balances. That being said, it should not be compared with modern digital banks such as Monzo or Starling. There is no personalization and the user interface is not as friendly as other options out there.
Al Rayan has no debit card product so in one sense there is no real need to provide constant updates on your balance. However, when you see the modern digital banks providing clean user friendly interfaces you kind of feel this is where Al Rayan is lagging in the modern digital generation.
Summary
Al Rayan Bank has been in the UK for over 15 years and is well established. With enticing profit rates it’s one of the options to consider when opening your next savings account in the UK. We hope to review other UK options out there soon so stay tuned!
Please note the information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, constitute financial advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only
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