Assessing Shariah Compliance in Syfe Investment Portfolios: A Guide for Investors #

Original Question: “I just opened an account with Syfe and I am deciding on which Portfolio I should invest in. From my understanding, Syfe Trade allows you to choose the stocks and ETFs you want to invest in, thus you can choose those that are Shariah compliant e.g. HLAL. For Syfe Wealth, you are unable to choose the stocks as they are fully-managed investment portfolios. There is a Cash+ portfolio under Syfe Wealth that invests our money in LionGlobal SGD Money Market Fund and LionGlobal SGD Enhanced LiquidityFund SGD Class I. Can I check if these two are Shariah compliant? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you”

Yes you are able to buy the different shariah compliant ETFs in the US market through Syfe but you can also buy other ETFs in the Europe market through Interactive Brokers. So it may be something you would like to consider for diversification purposes.

Regarding your question on LionGlobal funds, both are non-shariah compliant.

LionGlobal SGD Money Market Fund invests in “high-quality short-term money market instruments and debt securities. Such investments may include government and corporate bonds, commercial bills and deposits with financial institutions” (from the product highlight sheet). These investments gain interest thus it is not permissible in the eyes of Islam.

The second fund, LionGlobal SGD Enhanced Liquidity Fund SGD Class I is non-compliant as well as invests in a “high-quality portfolio of debt instruments diversified across varying issuers and tenures” (product highlight sheet). These investments also receive interest as a form of return and thus are also non-compliant with our Shariah.