Yes. The Alternative Bank is an Islamic bank in everything but the word. Its own pages, fetched on 18 September 2026, say it began in January 2014 as a non-interest banking window inside Sterling Bank, received its own banking licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria in July 2023, and now operates as a standalone non-interest bank with a registered address at 20 Marina, Lagos. Every product runs on a named Islamic contract (qard, mudarabah, wakala, ijarah, murabaha, istisna, salam) and an Advisory Committee of Experts reviews and approves each one. The bank markets itself as 'alternative' and 'ethical' rather than Islamic, which confuses people searching for it. The is-it-halal hub covers the principles; this page answers the identity question with the bank's own evidence.
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What kind of licence The Alternative Bank holds
The CBN licenses two kinds of non-interest banking: a window inside a conventional bank, and a full non-interest bank. The Alternative Bank has held both in sequence. Its Who We Are page states that it was 'provisionally allowed to offer a non-interest banking window under Sterling Bank' in January 2014, and that 'in July 2023 the Central Bank of Nigeria issued a Banking License to The Alternative Bank, enabling us to operate as a fully-fledged, standalone bank'. The site footer repeats that financial operations are 'authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria' and that the bank is 'an independent financial organization in the Non-interest Banking (NIB) sector'.
That sequence matters for one practical reason. A window shares its balance sheet with the conventional parent and ring-fences non-interest funds by policy; a standalone non-interest bank has its own balance sheet, its own capital and its own licence conditions, so depositors' money cannot be commingled with interest-based lending even in principle. Our explainer on Islamic windows versus full non-interest banks sets out why scholars treat the second as cleaner. Since July 2023, The Alternative Bank has been in the second category, alongside Jaiz, TAJBank, Lotus and Summit.
Is The Alternative Bank the same as Sterling Bank?
No, but the overlap is real and the bank's own website shows it. The Android app is published under the package name ng.sterling.altbank, the Advisory Committee chairman's biography lists Shariah board service at 'Sterling Bank Nigeria (Since 2013)', and several terms-and-conditions pages on altbank.ng still carry wording from the window era: the AltMobile terms describe the service as 'made available by Sterling through its Alternative Finance Window', and the AltPower terms say the site 'is owned and operated by Sterling Bank Plc through its Non-Interest Banking window; The Alternative Bank'. Those are legacy documents that have not caught up with the 2023 licence, and the bank should update them, but they tell you where the institution came from.
What they do not mean is that a Sterling Bank account is an AltBank account. The practical position, from the bank's own pages, is this.
- Separate licence: the CBN banking licence issued in July 2023 is The Alternative Bank's own, and the bank describes itself as independent within the non-interest banking sector.
- Separate onboarding: accounts are opened through AltBank's own portal and app with BVN-linked verification, and nothing migrates from a Sterling account automatically.
- Separate customer lines: 02017000555 and 02018889090 belong to The Alternative Bank, not to Sterling's contact centre.
- Shared history: the Advisory Committee chairman has served Sterling Bank Nigeria's Shariah board since 2013, and the app's package name still begins with ng.sterling.
- Unrevised documents: the AltMobile and AltPower terms pages still name Sterling Bank Plc as the operator through its window, wording that predates the 2023 licence.
The group-level ownership structure is set out in the bank's annual reports, and the 2024 and 2025 Annual Report and Financial Statements are downloadable from its investor relations page, which is where a shareholder-level answer to 'who owns it' lives. We did not fetch those PDFs for this piece and do not state the shareholding.
Who certifies that the products are Shariah-compliant
The bank publishes an Advisory Committee of Experts page with three named members and full biographies, which is more than some competitors do. Abdulkader Thomas, based in Kuwait, lists over 35 years in financial services and Shariah board experience at Bank Muscat Meethaq, Sterling Bank Nigeria and University Bank in the United States, and sits on the Securities Commission of Malaysia's international advisory board. Abdurraheem Ahmad Sayi is a Lagos legal practitioner who serves as a Qadi on the Independent Shari'ah Panel of Lagos State and as chief imam of a mosque in Ajah. Abubakar Muhammad Musa is a Shariah adviser with SHAPE Knowledge Services in Kuwait, formerly a researcher at ISRA in Kuala Lumpur, with Shariah and law qualifications from Al-Imam University in Riyadh and a CIFP from INCEIF.
The footer on every page states the committee's job: 'the review and approval of all our products and processes after ensuring full compliance with NIB principles'. The bank does not publish fatwa documents, product certificates or an annual Shariah audit report on the pages we fetched, so a customer who wants the actual ruling on a specific product has to ask the bank for it. Our wider audit of whether Nigeria's non-interest banks are actually Shariah-compliant scores that disclosure gap across the sector.
Why the bank avoids the word Islamic, and what that changes
The CBN's own framework uses the term non-interest banking rather than Islamic banking, partly to make the licence faith-neutral and partly because Nigeria is a mixed-faith federation. The Alternative Bank leans into that further than any peer, describing itself as 'Nigeria's Innovative Non-Interest Digital Bank', calling customers partners, and using the language of ethics rather than religion. Nothing on the site restricts accounts to Muslims, and nothing in the CBN framework does either, as our guide to how the CBN regulates non-interest banks explains.
What the branding does not change is the contract. A savings account on qard is the same contract whether the brochure says Islamic or ethical; a mudarabah deposit shares profit the same way; an ijarah asset finance is a lease regardless of the name on the app. The test for a Muslim customer is the contract and the committee, not the vocabulary, and on both counts the bank qualifies. The one thing the vocabulary does affect is discoverability: people who type 'Islamic bank' into a search engine do not find The Alternative Bank easily, which is the reason this page exists.
Which contract sits under each AltBank product
The Who We Are page lists the contract behind each product family, which is the single most useful disclosure on the site. We reproduce it as the bank states it, with the product pages fetched the same day for caps and tenors.
| Product | Contract stated by the bank | Published detail |
|---|---|---|
| Current, savings and Kia-Kia accounts | Qard (interest-free loan from you to the bank) | AltSave has zero minimum balance; AltCheck has no withdrawal charges or COT |
| Hajj savings, Trust and Profit-Share Investment accounts | Mudaraba (you own the fund, the bank manages it) | AltTrust adds takaful cover for death or total permanent disability of the principal |
| Termed deposit | Wakala and mudarabah | Tenor and profit ratio quote-only |
| Asset finance (AltDrive, equipment, household items) | Ijarah (lease) | Pricing quote-only |
| Trade finance | Murabaha (purchase and resale at a markup) | Pricing quote-only |
| Project finance | Istisna (build to order) | Business customers only |
| Small business product (AltBiz) | Murabaha, ijarah, wakala, istisna, qard-hassan and salam as the case needs | Maximum tenure 24 months; raw materials, stock and equipment only |
| Home finance | Diminishing musharakah, ijarah and murabaha | Up to 10 years; property value up to N80 million |
Two retail products deserve a line because they answer the 'does AltBank give loans' question people ask next. AltRent pays your annual rent to the landlord upfront and you repay monthly, with a residential limit of N5 million and a commercial limit of N2.5 million; EduFund pays school invoices directly, up to N5 million, over a four-month term or a twelve-month session, against a security deposit the page states as 10% in one place and 20% in another. Neither is a cash loan; both are the bank buying a service and selling it to you on deferred terms. The full review of the institution is in our Alternative Bank review.
Is your money protected by the NDIC
Yes. The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation's homepage, fetched on 18 September 2026, says that every deposit-taking institution licensed by the CBN, and it names non-interest banks explicitly alongside commercial banks, microfinance banks and primary mortgage institutions, is covered and pays annual premiums into the Deposit Insurance Fund. Coverage requires no registration, and on a licence revocation the NDIC uses your BVN to locate accounts and pays the insured sum automatically. The naira limit is on the NDIC's site and in our NDIC and non-interest banks explainer; it applies per depositor per bank, so an AltBank balance is insured separately from a Sterling one.
One nuance for a Muslim depositor: the NDIC runs a non-interest deposit insurance arrangement so that premiums and the fund itself are structured without riba. That is why the protection does not undermine the halal character of the account, a point the explainer linked above covers in detail.
The same question asked of Lotus, Jaiz and TAJBank
All four full non-interest banks answer 'is this an Islamic bank' with yes, and the differences are in history and disclosure rather than substance. Jaiz Bank was Nigeria's first full non-interest bank and its personal banking page describes current accounts on qard and savings on mudarabah in exactly the terms AltBank uses. TAJBank, licensed in 2019, publishes an ACE Management page naming its committee chairman and members with their other board seats. Lotus Bank states on its site that it obtained its CBN licence to commence non-interest banking on 18 June 2021 and lists murabaha, ijarah, ijarah for service and wakalah as its financing contracts. The Alternative Bank is the only one of the four that spent nine years as a window before becoming a bank, which is why the Sterling question follows it around.
Our view: who should bank here and who should not
If you want a non-interest bank that publishes the contract behind every product and names its Shariah committee, The Alternative Bank passes, and its app-first model suits anyone comfortable banking without a branch. If the Sterling connection bothers you on principle, note that the licence has been separate since July 2023 and the balance sheet with it; the remaining Sterling references are legacy wording on secondary pages and an app package name, not a shared book.
If you want fatwa documents, an annual Shariah audit report or published profit ratios before you open an account, none of the four full non-interest banks gives you that on its website today, and AltBank is no worse than its peers. Open a qard current account first, which commits you to nothing, and ask the bank in writing for the product certificate on any financing before you sign. Our bank accounts hub lists the accounts side by side. Facts checked against altbank.ng, ndic.gov.ng, lotusbank.com, tajbank.com on 18 September 2026. Jaiz Bank's personal banking page was fetched on 18 September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Alternative Bank an Islamic bank?
Yes. It is a full non-interest bank licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria in July 2023, operating on Islamic contracts (qard, mudarabah, wakala, ijarah, murabaha, istisna and salam) and supervised by an Advisory Committee of Experts that approves every product. It uses the words 'non-interest', 'alternative' and 'ethical' in its marketing rather than 'Islamic', but the contracts and governance are those of an Islamic bank.
Is The Alternative Bank the same as Sterling Bank?
No. It began in January 2014 as Sterling Bank's non-interest window and became a separately licensed bank in July 2023. Accounts, apps and customer lines are separate, and a Sterling account does not give you an AltBank account. Some older terms pages on altbank.ng still refer to Sterling Bank Plc, which is legacy wording from the window years.
Who owns The Alternative Bank?
The bank's website describes its origin inside Sterling Bank and its 2023 standalone licence, and publishes its 2024 and 2025 Annual Report and Financial Statements on the investor relations page, where the shareholding is disclosed. We did not fetch those reports for this piece, so we do not state the ownership percentages here.
Can a non-Muslim open an account at The Alternative Bank?
Yes. Nothing on the bank's site or in the CBN's non-interest banking framework restricts accounts by religion, and the bank's branding is deliberately faith-neutral. The contracts are the same for every customer; a qard current account simply pays no interest and charges none, and a mudarabah account shares actual profit.
Are deposits at The Alternative Bank insured?
Yes. The NDIC's homepage states that non-interest banks licensed by the CBN are covered by deposit insurance and pay premiums into the Deposit Insurance Fund, with no registration needed by the depositor. The insured limit is published on the NDIC site and applies per depositor per bank.
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Does The Alternative Bank pay interest on savings?
No. Its current, savings and Kia-Kia accounts run on qard, which means the bank holds your money as an interest-free loan and returns it on demand with no return either way. Accounts that do earn, such as the Profit-Share Investment Account and the termed deposit, run on mudarabah or wakala and pay a share of actual profit that is not fixed in advance.
