Wafr Raises Pre-Seed and Launches WafrChain for Sukuk

Tackling a slow, fragmented process

Sukuk are among the most complex instruments in Islamic finance to bring to market. A single issuance typically involves eight parties, from issuer and trustee to Shariah board, custodians, paying agent and investors. Each keeps its own record, and every transfer and profit payment is re-keyed and reconciled, which adds cost, delay and error risk. Issuance can take many months, sometimes more than a year.

WafrChain replaces those separate records with a shared one. Terms such as unit price, profit schedule and maturity are recorded on-chain, together with the issuer's Shariah board approval before distribution. Smart contracts route profit payments, and settlement can happen in fiat via local real-time gross settlement systems and SWIFT, or in stablecoins. Institutions connect through a single API.

The company says transactions reach finality in 300 milliseconds, each participant sees only its own activity, and the network can keep running with only a third of its nodes active.

Market and roadmap

The ICD–LSEG Islamic Finance Development Report 2026 puts global Islamic finance assets at $6.5 trillion in 2025, up 9%. Sukuk outstanding reached $1.14 trillion, and annual issuance rose 14.5% to $291.4 billion.

Wafr plans to add fund tokenisation, tokenised deposits, trade finance and B2B settlement for institutions. Consumer services, including international accounts, cross-border remittances and cards, are planned later, subject to regulatory approvals and working with licensed partners where required.