Entrex Carbon Market (Entrex), a Florida-based blockchain-enabled carbon offsets and futures trading platform, is considering pursuing a Shariah compliant Fatwa for its offerings pursuant to the investor mandate, Stephen H Watkins, CEO of Entrex, told ISFI.
“Today, we do not have a Fatwa but anticipate requesting one pursuant to the investor mandate. We have worked with parties domestically but need to align interests,” Watkins shared.
According to Watkins, Entrex has nearly US$520 million of project financings which could be funded through Shariah compliant structures across roughly 200 projects.
Commenting on the motivation behind its recently announced Shariah compliant revenue shares securities, Watkins noted that the platform had been approached by a number of domestic income-focused funds for project financing, some of which have Middle Eastern investors who asked if it is possible to create Shariah compliant revenue securities.
The Shariah compliant securities are six-month project financings, with KPMG managing the cash flow and profitability of each project on behalf of Entrex and the investors.
Watkins further shared that the company has ambitions to list its securities in a Middle Eastern trading market.
“We have a series of products and would love to list the securities in a Middle Eastern trading market which would provide an interesting green focus for the exchange and Shariah compliant securities for the audience,” Watkins added.
Founded in 2001, Entrex focuses on creating a marketplace to find, research, track, manage and trade quality carbon offset securities. The platform also allows investors to trade entrepreneurial securities by geography, sector or commodity.
Entrex’s carbon offset projects are managed by KPMG and independently researched for quality assurance.
The product output from these carbon offset projects is typically pre-sold to buyers through Entrex’s ‘CarbonEase’-branded carbon offset-backed securities.
Earlier this year, Entrex executed a letter of intent for a ‘significant capital investment’ into London-based fintech THETA to accelerate institutional trading of its securities including its Shariah compliant carbon offset financings via THETA’s ‘Apollo’ platform, an execution management system for institutional investors.