NY Times: Bank of Ann Arbor caters to Muslim customers

[muntrv]

A Hometown Bank Heeds a Call to Serve Its Islamic Clients
ANN ARBOR, MICH.

Until a stranger without an appointment showed up one day in late 2001, Stephen L. Ranzini was feeling rather pleased with himself. University Bank here, which he led as president, had just won a national award for community service. The honor attested to Mr. Ranzini’s success in working with local black ministers and a nonprofit agency to increase home-ownership in African-American neighborhoods.

Then, disturbing the aura of satisfaction, a well-dressed man arrived and insisted on seeing the president. “If your bank is so outstanding for community service,” the visitor said, as Mr. Ranzini recently recalled, “how come you’re not servicing my community?”

What community, the banker asked, would that be?

“I’m a Muslim,” the man responded.

Mr. Ranzini started to explain that University Bank already had plenty of Muslim customers, hardly a surprise in a college town in the area of southeast Michigan with the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the United States.

That answer did not satisfy the visitor. Those Muslims, he said, were paying or earning interest.

“So what?” Mr. Ranzini said. Wasn’t interest sort of the whole point of what banks did?

Over the next 10 minutes, Mr. Ranzini, a Roman Catholic executive who had grown up in the vanilla suburbs of New Jersey, started an education that would ultimately transform an otherwise conventional hometown bank into a national leader in the growing specialty of Islamic finance. This year, the bank won an award from the American Bankers Association largely for its service to Muslim clients.

University Bank now has an entire subsidiary devoted to finan

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/us/07religion.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[Jeep789]

1. Isn't that just getting around usury

and shouldn't usury laws apply to other religious (including Jewish and Christian) customers as well?

[Idealism]

2. They pay the same amount, they just eliminate the "interest" by adding it to the total house price.

There is no monetary difference

[Jeep789]

4. That is what I was implying

It is simply getting around using the word "interest" but they are still paying it.

[Idealism]

5. Precisely

Arab-Americans tend to be less conservative when it comes to strict interpretation of Islamic law. This satisfies the requirement, if in a minimal sense.

[Bread and Circus]

3. is this supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? or a who cares thing?

[Jeep789]

6. The real question is: Does the bank think it is fooling Muslims

or do the Muslims using it think they are fooling Allah?

[Bread and Circus]

8. This is typical of religious groups. They set up...

a bunch of standards that nobody, not even themselves can truthfully live by. They then decide which rules they want to break and then find some "church friendly" way to break them. With no apparent sense of irony, they then stone, behead, and berate others who don't live up to their code.

God almighty, Muslims, Christians, and Jews all drive me nuts with their hypocrisy.

[Eryemil]

7. Meh. Catering to stupid, religious sensibilities. I hope it's good for business at least