The Ruling on a Bank Visa Card
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Question:
The Shaykh said, may Allah correct you, what is the ruling on the condition in a Visa card? It is a card owned by a person at the bank, by which commercial establishments are charged, on the condition that you have an account at the bank, and yet the bank takes two hundred riyals annually for this card?
Answer:
This involves payment. Regarding the matter of the card, if the bank pays on your behalf what you owe and settles the amount for you, and then recovers from you what it settled for you plus an increase, this is riba (usury or interest), explicit riba. Because this is a loan; it means they lent to you, paid the shop owners on your behalf, and then collected from you afterwards and took an increase. This is a small [portion of] riba, which is explicit. Even if they call it the cost of maintenance, calling it the cost of the card does not remove the riba increase. It is a riba increase, not the cost of the card. It is an increase on what they paid on your behalf.
As for if they pay only from your money and your balance, paying from your money and your balance, and they do not pay anything from their own funds, but rather they pay from your money that is with them, and your balance with them is limited to what they have for you, and the transaction stops if the balance runs out and they stop, then there is doubt in this. There is doubt in it, but less than the first case.
Because it means they did not pay anything from their own funds, but rather they paid something from your money, within the limits of what you deposited with them. So there is doubt in this, in that the amount you placed with them, they invested it. They invested it during the period it remained with them in a riba investment. So you have cooperated with them in this investment and enabled them to invest this money, along with what they took from those who call it the card fee. So this is also not permissible. The Muslim should leave these matters, these tricks, and these deceptions, and buy and sell by himself, settling accounts with the shops himself. And praise be to Allah, he does not enter these paths that contain doubt, trickery, and deceptions. Yes.
The Shaykh said, may Allah correct you, what is the ruling on the condition in a Visa card? It is a card owned by a person at the bank, by which commercial establishments are charged, on the condition that you have an account at the bank, and yet the bank takes two hundred riyals annually for this card?
Answer:
This involves payment. Regarding the matter of the card, if the bank pays on your behalf what you owe and settles the amount for you, and then recovers from you what it settled for you plus an increase, this is riba (usury or interest), explicit riba. Because this is a loan; it means they lent to you, paid the shop owners on your behalf, and then collected from you afterwards and took an increase. This is a small [portion of] riba, which is explicit. Even if they call it the cost of maintenance, calling it the cost of the card does not remove the riba increase. It is a riba increase, not the cost of the card. It is an increase on what they paid on your behalf.
As for if they pay only from your money and your balance, paying from your money and your balance, and they do not pay anything from their own funds, but rather they pay from your money that is with them, and your balance with them is limited to what they have for you, and the transaction stops if the balance runs out and they stop, then there is doubt in this. There is doubt in it, but less than the first case.
Because it means they did not pay anything from their own funds, but rather they paid something from your money, within the limits of what you deposited with them. So there is doubt in this, in that the amount you placed with them, they invested it. They invested it during the period it remained with them in a riba investment. So you have cooperated with them in this investment and enabled them to invest this money, along with what they took from those who call it the card fee. So this is also not permissible. The Muslim should leave these matters, these tricks, and these deceptions, and buy and sell by himself, settling accounts with the shops himself. And praise be to Allah, he does not enter these paths that contain doubt, trickery, and deceptions. Yes.
Source
التعامل ببطاقة فيزا — alfawzan.live
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.