Redefining Ethical Finance
What Drives Us
CCM’s management and advisory board pioneered the Islamic finance industry two decades ago by successfully catalysing the market with brand new products and services. We were driven by a vision of ethical financial services that served all, regardless of faith.
However, banks are focused on money creation through debt and interest, and not on true partnership with their customers. That’s why we launched CCM: to once again revolutionise the wider ethical finance industry and deliver the services to the lifeblood of the real economy that even ethical alternative banks cannot.
We believe a just economic model is not one that is hidden behind smoke and mirrors, behind legal tricks hidden in complex contractual structures. It must be real asset-based and must directly finance tangible business activity. It must share the risks fairly between all stakeholders. It must be transparent, halal, ethical, wholesome, sustainable and ESG-friendly. We won’t compromise on these values.
ESG stands for “environmental, social and governance”.
Companies that abide by ESG guidelines maintain a set of standards for their behaviour. For example, they may have corporate policies on how the company safeguards the environment, its sustainability practices, how it manages relationships with various stakeholder such as customers, suppliers, employees and the communities where it operates, and how its governance deals with the company’s leadership, executive pay, audits and internal controls.
At CCM, we work with clients seeking to make positive social impact and adhering to good ESG standards.
Halal means permissible in Islamic law (Shari’a).
The activities of the companies we engage with and the securities that are issued are carefully vetted for compliance with Shari’a. This means the company cannot engage in impermissible activities (such as gambling or alcohol), and the financial instrument must meet various conditions to be deemed permissible (such as remaining interest-free).
CCM has world class expertise in Shari’a structuring of financial instruments and a network including the world’s top Shari’a scholars and thinkers.
CCM’s proprietary financial solution also rejects the replication of conventional debt-based finance.
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The real economy is the part of a country’s economy that produces real goods and services, rather than the part that consists of financial services such as banks (which is known as the financial economy).
Financing SMEs lubricates the wheels of the real economy by focusing on the manufacture and provision of real goods and services, instead of creating increasingly arcane financial instruments like derivatives whose value is derived from other underlying assets.
For this reason, CCM focuses on financing businesses with tangible economic activity, underpinned by real assets or inventory.
We firmly believe this is the essence of a just and socially impactful economic model.
A high level of due diligence is performed on a business before working capital is raised. CCM drills down into the smallest details before agreeing to take on a client.
Investors in the securities have a transparent interest in a specific business activity or assets, and the split of profits or revenues is known in advance. Performance of that activity is monitored consistently throughout the life of the investment notes to ensure targets are met and confirmed by audited reports.
Risk sharing means the investment notes are not interest-bearing securities (like bonds) or fixed payments paid to investors regardless of the performance of the business.
Instead, risk sharing means investors earn from the profits (or sometimes the revenues) of the specified business activity or assets.