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Samy Mohamad spent more than a decade structuring cross-border equity trades at Morgan Stanley before founding Tabadulat, the UAE’s first fully regulated, Shariah-compliant global brokerage. The gap he kept running into wasn’t a lack of Shariah-compliant products; it was that compliance and execution were never built as one system: a Muslim investor would check a stock’s status on one platform, trade it on another, then have to keep checking whether the position was still halal on their own.
Tabadulat went from ADGM in-principle approval to a full FSRA Category 3A licence in under a year, and now offers 0% commission on Shariah-compliant US stocks, halal ETFs, and Commodity Murabaha savings products, backed by an AAOIFI-aligned screening process and $3.3 million in committed capital. We asked Mohamad how that screening actually works when a stock’s status changes mid-trade, where the money comes from if trading itself is free, and what he thinks is still genuinely unsolved in Shariah-compliant investing.
In Conversation with Samy Mohamad
You spent your career structuring cross-border equity trades at Morgan Stanley, a long way from Shariah-compliant retail investing. What was the specific moment that made you decide institutional-grade trading infrastructure and strict Shariah compliance were being treated as two separate problems, when they didn’t have to be?
Samy Mohamad: It wasn’t one moment; it was something I saw repeatedly throughout my career. After more than a decade in global capital markets, including at Morgan Stanley, working on complex investment portfolios and cross-border equity strategies, I saw first-hand the level of infrastructure, execution and risk management available to institutional investors.
But it was never available to Muslim retail investors because Shariah compliance was seen as a separate layer. You use one service to check if a stock is compliant, another platform to trade, and after all of that, have to continuously check if your investments stay halal.
We believed those shouldn’t be separate problems. So Tabadulat fixed that by being a brokerage infrastructure with an inbuilt Shariah framework. It’s not a halal filter, it’s just all halal.
You’re an AAOIFI member and run a free Halal Stock Screener. Walk me through what actually happens when a stock’s compliance status changes, say a company’s debt ratio moves past the Shariah-compliant threshold. Who makes that call, how fast does it happen, and what happens to a customer already holding that position?
Samy Mohamad: We apply AAOIFI standards to Shariah screening, with independent oversight from our Shariah Supervisory Board. The screening looks at the company’s activities and the financial ratios, including interest-bearing debt, interest-bearing investments and non-permissible income.
Screening has to be an ongoing process rather than a one-off check when an investor first buys a stock, because a company can move its financial position or its business activities change. We keep checking Shariah status and make it clear to the investor, so customers can just trade.
When the screening identifies that a stock is no longer Shariah-compliant, its status is updated and customers holding the stock are told. If they already own the stock, however, we don’t force them to liquidate the position. They can continue to hold it or sell it. They won’t be able to purchase additional shares through Tabadulat until the status changes back.
Tabadulat offers 0% commission on Shariah-compliant US stocks. If trading itself is free, where does the business actually make money, the Commodity Murabaha savings products, an FX spread, or something else? And now that Pay-by-Bank is live through Spare, does that materially change your margin versus card-based funding?
Samy Mohamad: Zero commission on US stocks is a deliberate part of our model. Tabadulat is being built as a broader Shariah-compliant financial platform, so the business model can extend beyond trading commissions. We have revenue opportunities across other parts of the platform, including our Commodity Murabaha savings products and clearly disclosed service fees such as custody. As we introduce more Shariah-compliant products, we’ll have a more diversified revenue model.
Pay-by-Bank through Spare is important because it gives customers an easier way to fund their accounts and own halal stocks. There’s potentially a cost benefit as volumes scale because account-to-account payments can also have different processing economics from card funding.
But it is still very early. I wouldn’t claim that Pay-by-Bank has materially changed our margins at this stage. Right now, the more immediate benefit is improving the funding experience and giving customers another convenient way to move money into owning halal stocks.
You went from ADGM in-principle approval to a full FSRA Category 3A licence in under a year. What was the part of that process that took longer or was harder than you expected going in? And is there anything about Category 3A specifically that limits what Tabadulat can offer today versus a broader licence class?
Samy Mohamad: Getting the licence wasn’t the hardest part, it was making sure the entire operating model behind Tabadulat met the standards expected of a regulated financial institution.
So we treat regulation as part of building the product. For a brokerage, that means building governance, compliance, AML controls, technology, risk management, custody and counterparty arrangements together. In our case, we also had to make sure our Shariah governance framework worked alongside that regulatory infrastructure.
During that journey, we established an independent Shariah Supervisory Board, we also became an AAOIFI member and ultimately secured our full Financial Services Permission from the ADGM FSRA.
We really believe that sometimes restriction is freedom, and in the case of Category 3A, it makes each expansion more deliberate. Our objective isn’t to launch as many products as possible as quickly as possible. It’s to make sure that when we launch something, the regulatory structure and the Shariah framework are both right.
Our Category 3A permission defines the regulated activities we’re authorised to conduct, so we can’t simply launch any financial product because we think there is customer demand for it. New products and activities will fall within our permissions or go through the appropriate regulatory process.
What’s the one structural problem in Shariah-compliant investing in this region that’s still genuinely unsolved, not a product gap you’re planning to fill, but something the whole category hasn’t cracked yet?
Samy Mohamad: I think the biggest structural problem is fragmentation.
A Muslim investor can still end up using one platform to check whether a stock is Shariah-compliant, another to execute the investment, and other tools to understand things like purification or Zakat. The burden of bringing all of that together still falls too heavily on the individual investor.
Making Shariah-compliant investing as integrated and accessible as conventional investing, without asking the customer to compromise on either the investment experience or their principles, is our aim.
The industry has made significant progress on screening, but screening alone doesn’t solve the problem. The harder challenge is creating an end-to-end financial infrastructure where Shariah governance, investment execution, custody, cash management and ongoing compliance monitoring work together.
There is also fragmentation in the standards being applied. Different providers can use different Shariah screening methodologies, meaning investors may sometimes see different classifications for the same company. We chose to align our screening with AAOIFI standards and have independent Shariah oversight because we wanted a clear and consistent framework.
Ultimately, I don’t think the industry’s biggest challenge is simply adding another investment product.
Looking at the next 12 months specifically, what’s actually on the roadmap: a new asset class beyond US stocks and ETFs, licensing in another GCC market, something else entirely? And of everything on that list, what’s the one thing you’re confident will actually ship in that window, versus the one that’s more aspirational?
Samy Mohamad: The next 12 months are about expanding both the investment universe and the infrastructure around the investor.
Today, we’re building beyond Shariah-compliant US stocks and ETFs. We have Commodity Murabaha Savings, and we’ve partnered with Minted Connect to provide access to Shariah-compliant, physically backed gold ETCs. REITs are another area we’re working toward, giving investors access to Shariah-compliant real estate exposure without requiring direct property ownership.
We’re also focused on tools that solve problems around investing rather than just adding more assets. Zakat is a good example. Once an investor owns multiple assets, calculating Zakat obligations can become complicated, so we’re working toward tools that make that process much simpler.
Geographic expansion is also part of the longer-term direction. Our ambition is to give Muslim investors access to Shariah-compliant opportunities across global markets rather than limiting the platform to US equities.
If I separate what we have the most control over from what is more aspirational: expanding the products and tools available within the platform is something we can execute directly. Expansion into additional regulated markets depends on licensing, regulators and local market infrastructure, so I would be more cautious about committing publicly to a specific GCC market or deadline until those processes are sufficiently advanced.
Editor’s Take: Samy’s answer about when a stock falls out of Shariah compliance, Tabadulat doesn’t force a sale, it locks new purchases and lets the investor decide is quite interesting. It’s the kind of operational detail that actually tells you whether strict Shariah compliance means anything or is just a label.
Mohamad was direct that Pay-by-Bank hasn’t materially moved Tabadulat’s margins yet, no premature claim of a cost win. And fragmentation, his answer to what’s still unsolved, is so on point: different providers running different screening standards on the same stock is a genuine problem for an investor trying to trust any single platform.