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What is the ruling on a merchant selling his deferred debts to customers to a bank for a lower amount, so that the bank can collect them?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The transaction of "debt discounting" in banks is forbidden by Islamic law (haram) and is a form of Riba (usury), as it involves both Riba al-Nasiah (riba of delay) and Riba al-Fadl (riba of excess). Selling a bill of exchange for less than its face value to expedite payment is considered selling present cash for deferred cash of the same kind with an increase, which violates the conditions for exchanging currency for currency. The Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta' and the Islamic Fiqh Academy have issued fatwas prohibiting the discounting of commercial papers, because it leads to riba.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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