The question arrives in our inbox in some form every week: is GXBank halal? What about Boost Bank's 4% jars? The short answer is that Malaysia's digital banking licences were split at birth, and the split answers the question cleanly. Bank Negara Malaysia awarded five licences in April 2022: three under the Financial Services Act 2013, which is the conventional track, and two under the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013. The licence class determines everything downstream: contracts, governance, and whether returns are profit or interest.
We verified each bank's public positioning in a crawl on August 6, 2026. Here is the full breakdown. The stakes are practical rather than abstract: digital banks pay some of the best deposit rates in Malaysia right now, and a saver who cannot tell the licences apart can end up earning riba while believing otherwise, simply because an app looked modern and the word interest was buried in a footnote.
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The two Islamic digital banks
AEON Bank, from the AEON consortium, was Malaysia's first Islamic digital bank. Every product carries the -i suffix: Savings Account-i with pots at 3.00% p.a. promotional, Term Deposit-i at 3.08% for 6 months at crawl, and Personal Financing-i open to gig income from RM2,500 a month. Its Shariah page describes a committee spanning Fiqh, Usul al-Fiqh, fintech and Islamic finance, with internal Shariah risk, review and audit functions. PIDM member.
KAF Digital Bank publishes a Shariah statement confirming a BNM-approved Shariah Committee supported by internal compliance functions. Its Savings Account-i pays weekly discretionary hibah with a dated history table: 5.00% p.a. on the first RM2,000 and 3.00% above, through the visible June to August 2026 history, with correct disclaimers that past hibah is not indicative. One gap: committee members are not individually named on the public site. PIDM member.
Both banks are covered in depth in our Islamic digital banks guide.
The three conventional digital banks
GXBank, from the Grab-Singtel consortium GXS, holds one of the three conventional licences. At our review, no Islamic subsidiary, window or BNM-approved Islamic product line was in evidence. A conventional licence means deposits are interest-bearing loans to the bank by legal construction, whatever the marketing vocabulary.
Boost Bank, the Boost-RHB consortium, removes any ambiguity itself: its homepage at our crawl marketed savings with the words 'up to 4% p.a. daily interest' on Special Jars and 'up to 3% p.a. daily interest' on regular savings. Explicit interest terminology, no Shariah committee disclosure, no Islamic contract names, no -i suffixes anywhere we crawled.
Ryt Bank, the YTL-Sea consortium's entry, markets itself as an AI-powered bank with 'potential returns of 6% p.a.' on Ryt Invest and offers from 4% p.a. Its homepage carried no Shariah governance disclosure and no Islamic contract terminology at our crawl. Conventional licence. Note too that the 6% figure attaches to an investment product rather than a deposit, a distinction the marketing does not labour; whatever its compliance status, comparing it against savings rates is comparing different risk classes.
The scorecard
| Bank | Licence | Shariah governance published | Verdict for Muslim savers |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEON Bank | Islamic (IFSA 2013) | Yes, committee and internal functions | Compliant by licence and governance |
| KAF Digital Bank | Islamic (IFSA 2013) | Committee confirmed, members unnamed | Compliant by licence and governance |
| GXBank | Conventional (FSA 2013) | None found | Not Shariah-compliant |
| Boost Bank | Conventional (FSA 2013) | None found; markets 'daily interest' | Not Shariah-compliant |
| Ryt Bank | Conventional (FSA 2013) | None found | Not Shariah-compliant |
How to verify any bank yourself in five minutes
- Check the licence class. BNM publishes lists of licensed banks and Islamic banks; an institution licensed under the Financial Services Act 2013 is conventional, one under the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 is Islamic.
- Look for a Shariah page. Every Islamic bank in Malaysia must maintain a Shariah committee, and legitimate ones publish at least a governance statement, usually with named scholars.
- Read the product names. Malaysian Islamic products carry the -i suffix by convention: Savings Account-i, Term Deposit-i, Financing-i. Its absence across an entire product shelf is a loud signal.
- Read the return language. 'Profit rate', 'hibah' and named contracts like Tawarruq or Qard indicate Islamic structuring; 'interest' indicates the opposite, whatever the brand's vibe.
- Check the PDS. The product disclosure sheet names the underlying contract on the first page. If no contract is named anywhere, you have your answer.
Why the licence matters more than the app copy
Marketing language changes with campaigns; licences do not. An Islamic digital bank licence under IFSA 2013 obliges the institution to run every product through a BNM-approved Shariah committee, maintain Shariah risk and audit functions, and structure deposits as Qard, Wadiah or trade-based contracts rather than interest-bearing loans. The obligation is statutory and supervised. A conventional bank offering a jar with a nice rate has made you a lender earning interest, which is riba regardless of how friendly the interface is.
Could a conventional digital bank launch a compliant Islamic window later? In principle, licensing frameworks allow structures to evolve, and we would revisit any bank that ships BNM-approved Islamic products with published governance. At our verification date, none of the three had.
It is worth stating what this article is not claiming. GXBank, Boost Bank and Ryt Bank are legitimate, licensed, BNM-supervised institutions, and their deposits carry PIDM protection like any member bank's. Nothing here questions their safety or legality. The single question we are answering is Shariah compliance, and on that question the licence class, the absence of Shariah governance and, in Boost's case, the bank's own use of the word interest, settle it. A Muslim saver is not being asked to judge anyone's intentions, only to read what the institutions themselves publish.
What Muslim savers give up by staying compliant, honestly
At crawl, Ryt marketed potential returns of 6% and Boost marketed 4% jars, against AEON's 3.00% pots and KAF's 5.00% first-RM2,000 band. On small balances, KAF actually wins outright. On larger liquid balances, the conventional trio's headline numbers can run higher than the Islamic pair's, though promotional asterisks apply everywhere in digital banking. The compliant stack still reaches roughly 3% blended with modest effort, as our rate-stacking plan shows, and every layer of it is PIDM-protected. The gap, where one exists, is the price of keeping your savings inside your principles, and in 2026 Malaysia that price is smaller than it has ever been.
Frequently asked questions
Is money already sitting in GXBank or Boost Bank haram to keep?
The principal you deposited is your money and remains yours. The scholarly consensus treatment is to withdraw to a compliant account and, if interest was credited, purify it by giving that amount to charity without expecting reward. Moving is straightforward given both AEON and KAF onboard by eKYC in minutes.
Are the Islamic digital banks' deposits as protected as at big banks?
Yes. AEON Bank and KAF Digital Bank are PIDM members, so eligible deposits carry the same RM250,000 per-depositor protection as Maybank Islamic or Bank Islam. See our PIDM explainer for how Islamic and conventional cover are counted separately.
Compare providers in your state
See side-by-side comparisons of Shariah-compliant products, or let our matcher recommend the best options for your situation.
Does a Shariah committee really check a digital bank's products?
Under BNM's Shariah Governance Framework, yes: committee approval covers products, marketing materials and legal documentation, backed by internal review and audit functions. AEON describes exactly this scope on its Shariah page. The framework is the same one governing Malaysia's largest Islamic banks; we explain it in our Shariah governance guide.