Harris Irfan

Early life and education

Irfan says he was born in the UK. He describes himself as a second-generation Pakistani whose father came to the UK in 1960, and says his head is British but his heart is Pakistani. He went to university in the early 1990s. [1]

Deutsche Bank

Irfan says Deutsche Bank transferred him from London to Dubai, where he was the first Deutsche Bank banker on the ground. He says the bank asked him to open its Dubai office and originate new transactions. He also says he co-founded the Islamic finance team at Deutsche Bank. [1]

Irfan says the Deutsche Bank Islamic finance team did sukuk deals on a multi-billion dollar basis. He says that he and his team developed and invented a new market, and that the remit of his team was global. He adds that the team invented asset-backed sukuk about 20 years ago. [1]

Irfan says he and his colleagues were ideologically driven and were young, practicing Muslims. He says he has worked with many of the world's leading Islamic scholars. According to Irfan, his team hired a scholar he describes as the world's most important and best known, who was essentially the architect of the products they put together. He says Dubai was the epicenter of the Islamic finance revolution because it attracted expats with strong technical skills. [1]

Cordoba Capital Markets and other projects

Irfan says he and his colleagues created a subsidiary called CCM, which is Cordoba Capital Markets. He says he went to Pakistan to see how its incubators and accelerators worked, and that he was setting up an incubator or accelerator in the UK a few years ago. [1]

Irfan says he converted the mudharaba concept into a financial instrument called a profit participating note (PPN). He says that he and his colleagues only have regulatory approval to bring professional investors, and that he hopes to let all investors buy in with amounts as small as $1. He says he set up a protected cell company in Jersey using the traditional legal route, and that the tokenization platform providers were not professional enough for him. [1]

Views on Islamic finance

Irfan says the phrase Islamic banking is an oxymoron because the two are mutually incompatible. He says Islamic banks are regulated in the same way as conventional banks, and that Islamic finance cannot be created on top of conventional finance. He says Islamic finance should be based on a purer Islamic economic model. [1]

Irfan defines riba as any excess of money on money. He says Islamic economics aims to create symmetric relationships in which parties share risk. [1]

Irfan says scholars deem financial instruments halal for a particular time and setting, not for all time, and that scholars have said what they have said because they see no alternative. He says practitioners such as himself invent new products and then convince scholars they are wholesome. He says a particular hadith refers to exchanging something that may be considered money, spot, hand-to-hand. He also says that what the bankers did was abusive to the industry. [1]

Views on banks and reform

Irfan says banks are allowed to lend much more than they hold as reserves, and that banks have the legal right to create money from nothing. He says he knows how financial institutions work because he has worked inside them. [1]

Irfan says he has come to believe it is nearly impossible to change the economic model from within a flawed system. He says he once thought he could change it from within that environment, but that it is fundamentally rotten to the core. [1]

Views on money and the economy

Irfan says anything a society deems a medium of exchange or store of value can be money. He says ancient wisdom is always more valuable than contemporary thought. He says he was once a believer in the gold standard and that gold is a particularly good form of money. He says he believes in a peer-to-peer currency. [1]

Irfan says it takes no energy for the US government to print dollars, and that $100 held in 1900 was worth about $4 in real terms by 2000. He describes a cycle of more debt, more cheap money, more inflation and another crash. He also says fiat money has led to the greatest mechanized murder of people in history, and that the US has been in a perpetual state of war since 1971. [1]

Irfan says he expects the global economy to collapse, possibly bigger than the 2007 and 2008 crisis. He says that from a financial perspective he believes the US is a ticking time bomb. [1]

Views on Bitcoin and gold

Irfan says that while delivering a lecture on Islamic finance in 2017, an audience member asked him what he thought about Bitcoin. He says he prefers a world with Bitcoin, though he does not know whether it will succeed. He says he does not believe in crypto in general, only in Bitcoin. [1]

Irfan says gold and Bitcoin are hedges against financial Armageddon, and that Bitcoin's volatility today is no more than that of big tech stocks. He advises people to make sure they do not custody on an exchange. [1]

Views on Pakistan

Irfan says there is a generation of highly educated, hard-working young people in Pakistan building fintech companies. He says he thinks Pakistan is all right, inshallah. He says Pakistan has been to the IMF 24 times and is poorer each time. Irfan urges Pakistanis to get into gold and Bitcoin as soon as they can, advises them to save a small part of their monthly income, and advises them to become economically strong, since that brings social and political influence. [1]

Personal life

Irfan describes himself as a risk-averse person. He says he looks at his portfolio once a year and thinks on a 20-year basis. [1]

Timeline

1960

His father came to the UK.[1]

2017

An audience member asked him about Bitcoin at a lecture on Islamic finance.[1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. Islamic banking is an oxymoron, says Harris Irfan . Thought Behind Things , 2024-09-13.