Its worth noting that Islamic banking rules arent too different from how the Catholic church used to view usury, and how Jewish bankers still operate (although as I understand, jewish bankers are allowed to demand interest from non Jews). The principles behind it arent so much religious as moral, and to be perfectly honest, I think even practical. The more I read about Islamic banking, the more I think its simply a good idea regardless of religion.
I don’t have any problems with Islamic banking.. in fact it seems like a nicer / friendlier sort of banking than we have here with ideas like profit sharing while we have predatory lending.
My only issue is when people commit to living their lives by a code but then seek to subvert the code by playing word games to allow themselves to do whatever they want.
Over simplified examples with made up numbers:
Story A: Person borrows $100,000. Bank has lien on the asset and person pays $500 / month for 30 years to cover principal + interest.
Story B: Person wants asset worth $100,000. Bank buys asset and charges person $500 / month for 30 years in a rent to own arrangement.
The exact same economic activity is occurring with the exact same intent in both stories but somehow God hates Story A enough to explicitly ban it but is supposed to be just fine with Story B.
Anyway, Im not sure if Islamic banking is the example, or even word to use for BitCoin. It would simply be full reserve banking instead of fractional reserve banking.
The problem with the full reserve banking is that there is nothing in it for the bank. They would need to charge a fee for deposits.. so what is there in it for you to pay someone else to hold your Bitcoins?
The only Bitcoin banking scenario which makes sense is facilitation of instant payments between account holders without waiting for block confirmations.
