General Investment Fund

For eligibility, you will need to ensure you:
- Are an Australian Citizen or Permanent Resident of Australia
- Are aged 18 or over

You can apply online through our online form. Make sure you meet our basic eligibility criteria for our General Investment before applying.

The application process

1. Apply online
The online application may take a few minutes to complete where you’ll mention:
    - Basic Details
    - Contact Information
    - Upload required documents
    
2. Deposit your fund
After your application is reviewed and approved, we will ask you to transfer your investment to ICFAL’s account.
    
3. Grow your investment
Sit back and enjoy halal returns on your investments.

General Investment Fund members can hold up to 20% of ICFAL’s at a time.

The dividend is calculated on the weekly average balance of the account. There are two different dividends calculated:
1. General membership account,
2. Self-managed Super Fund account, Children’s Education Fund account, and Hajj Fund Account.

ICFAL's annual dividend is declared at Annual General Meeting (AGM) with approval from its members. The AGM is held within 6 months of the beginning of the financial year (usually September/October).

The dividend is posted to all member’s accounts within 1 month of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and a statement is sent confirming the posting.

We are one of Australia’s few, and only Islamic finance organisations, that is community-owned and operated. This means all our members have a voice in the management of the organisation and will directly share in any profit and loss of the organisation.

No single person or small group of individuals own ICFAL. The profits and losses are owned and shared by the members.

Anyone who becomes a member of ICFAL will have a vote in the running of the organisation.
Our members are representative of the rich and diverse Australian Muslim community who contribute their money to help other members of our cooperative obtain Islamic finance through our globally unique Musharakah finance. A model that has been developed and refined over our 23 years of operation.

Legally:
“A co-operative structure is a legally incorporated entity designed to serve the interests of its members. They serve their members by providing goods and services that may be unavailable or too costly to access as individuals."

Generally, all members are expected to use or contribute to their co-operative and have an equal say in the running of the organisation. Co-operatives are subject to state and territory legislation the Co-operatives National Law.

“[https://business.gov.au/planning/business-structures-and-types/business-structures/co-operative](https://business.gov.au/planning/business-structures-and-types/business-structures/co-operative)”

Think of us as a type of crowdfunding where we simply accumulate funds from members willing to help other members acquire property.

A member can redeem his/her shares by sending a signed and filled up “Share Redemption” form at any time.

However, due to the nature of the business, ICFAL may not have enough liquidity to pay all members according to their share redemption request. Therefore, any share redemption request for higher than $5,000 will require a minimum 30-day notice and the requests are processed depending on fund availability.

For all amount of share redemption requests higher than $10,000, the transfer may be made in stages for an extended period after the notice period ends.

Due to the nature of business, ICFAL does not always have enough liquidity to process all or large share redemption requests in one go. Therefore, members are advised to inform ICFAL with a fair amount of time for any urgent payments to be made (e.g. land settlement/Real Estate payments etc). 

ICFAL always prioritize payments for medical and other compelling reasons (newborn expenses, death in family). Documentary evidence is required for compelling cases where the share redemption requests exceed $10,000.

We invest in Shariah-Compliant investment that avoids any impermissible and doubtful elements in view of Islam.

All of ICFAL's processes are screened by our Internal Shariah Board. The Shariah Board adheres to a zero-tolerance policy for prohibited elements that makes us a 100% Shariah Compliant.

ICFAL operates a truly unique financing model by:

1. Sourcing our funds only from our members and kept in an interest-free bank account.
2. Sharing in any equity profits and losses in the sale of the property in the market.
3. Allowing for the rent and profits paid under our Musharaka financing model to be based on the actual rent and property prices using an independent valuer.
4. Our profit rates are not tied to the prevailing market interest rates.
5. ICFAL is a community-owned and operated organisation. The profits are not attributed to any single member or a small group of individuals.
6. ICFAL simply offers a platform to bring members who would like to help other members to homeownership through a proven Islamic financing model.

We believe these factors make us substantially different from other financing models.

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There is a fundamental difference between Islamic finance principles and Islamic charity. Islamic charity, such as Zakat and Sadaqah, have their own set of specific rules that aims to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor without any financial benefit for the person who gives the zakat or sadaqah.

On the other hand, Islamic finance is a set of guiding principles and rules that allows for people who have wealth to invest that money into activities that may generate economic benefits. These Islamic finance principles serve to provide guidelines of appropriate justice and risk-sharing between two parties for a transaction.

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