Frequently Asked Questions

Investing in a way that passes three tests: what the business does, how the contract works, and how the balance sheet is financed.

• Business activity - excludes conventional finance, alcohol, gambling, pork, adult entertainment, tobacco and conventional armaments
• Contract - excludes riba (interest), excessive gharar (uncertainty) and maysir (gambling)
• Financial structure - ratio limits on debt, interest-bearing cash and non-permissible income, with purification of the incidental remainder

The tests are applied against a named standard, by a Shariah board or adviser, and reviewed over time.

The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions - a Bahrain-based standard-setting body whose Shariah standards are the most widely cited in Islamic finance.

AAOIFI issues Shariah, accounting, auditing and governance standards. Its Shariah standards define the permissible contract structures and the screening ratios many funds apply.

It is a standard-setter, not a regulator: it has no authority in Australia, and adopting its standards is a choice a fund makes and discloses. Other methodologies exist - MSCI Islamic, S&P Shariah, Dow Jones Islamic and various in-house methods - and they do not always agree.

A bondholder owns a debt and receives interest. A sukuk holder owns a share of an asset or a venture and receives the income it produces.

• What you own - a claim on a borrower, versus a beneficial interest in identified assets
• Where the return comes from - a fixed interest rate, versus rent, profit or a sale mark-up generated by the asset
• What happens on default - a creditor claim, versus recourse that depends on whether the sukuk is asset-backed or merely asset-based

They overlap on exclusions and diverge on everything structural.

• Both typically exclude alcohol, gambling, tobacco, adult entertainment and conventional armaments
• Shariah adds the exclusion of interest-based income and conventional financial companies
• Shariah adds financial-ratio screens limiting a company's debt and interest-bearing assets
• Shariah adds purification of incidental impure income
• Shariah requires a Shariah board or adviser and, normally, a certificate
• ESG adds factors Shariah screening does not consider - carbon intensity, labour practices, board composition

An ethical or ESG fund is not a Shariah-compliant fund, and neither label makes the other redundant.

A fund-level certificate names the product and covers a stated period. A manager-level certificate covers the firm in general and is not evidence about any particular fund.

What to look for on a certificate:

• The product it names - this fund, or the manager
• The period it covers, and whether that period has ended
• The board or scholar who issued it, identified by name
• The standard the certification was assessed against

InvestHAQ grades the strength of the evidence a fund discloses on the Certification Strength Scale. It grades the evidence - it does not certify the fund.

The proportion of a distribution that came from impermissible income and should be given away rather than kept.

A screened company can still earn a small amount of interest or other non-permissible income. The fund's Shariah adviser calculates what proportion of income that represents and publishes it as a rate - for example 0.42% of distributions for the year.

You apply the rate to what you received and donate that amount, with no expectation of reward and no tax benefit claimed. Purification is separate from zakat and does not replace it.

A cumulative return is the total change over a period. An annualised return is the constant yearly rate that would produce it.

Over three years, +33% cumulative is about +10% annualised. Over six months, +6% is a cumulative period return - presenting it as "12% annualised" projects half a year of results onto a full year, which is not a measurement.

A target of inflation plus a margin - the fund aims to beat the cost of living by 3 percentage points a year over its stated horizon.

Two details decide what the number actually is:

• Which CPI - InvestHAQ uses the ABS Consumer Price Index series, stated on each fund profile
• How the margin is added - InvestHAQ uses the additive convention (CPI + 3). A geometric convention ((1+CPI) x 1.03 - 1) is also used in the market and gives a slightly higher target

An objective is not a promise. Most CPI-plus objectives are stated over rolling multi-year periods, and are frequently missed over shorter ones.

A count of how much of the expected disclosure a fund actually publishes. It measures disclosure - never quality, and never merit.

Seven criteria, up to eight points, displayed as "X of Y applicable" so a fund is never penalised for a criterion that does not apply to it. The criteria cover whether the fund discloses a current fund-level certificate, a named Shariah board, a named screening standard, a purification rate, a complete total-fee figure, a stated benchmark, and current documents.

Three documents, two audiences.

• PDS (Product Disclosure Statement) - the retail disclosure document: what the product invests in, its risks, its fees and how to invest
• TMD (Target Market Determination) - who the product was designed for, and how it may be distributed
• IM (Information Memorandum) - the wholesale offer document, not held to the PDS disclosure standard and often materially less complete on fees

A wholesale investor is one the Corporations Act treats as not needing retail-level disclosure. Everyone else is retail.

The commonly used tests under sections 761G and 708:

• Product value - the amount paid for the product is at least $500,000
• Net assets or income - net assets of at least $2.5 million, or gross income of at least $250,000 in each of the last two financial years, certified by a qualified accountant on a certificate valid for two years
• Professional investor - an AFSL holder, a regulated body or an entity controlling at least $10 million
• Sophisticated investor - an AFSL holder is satisfied the investor has the relevant experience, with written reasons and the investor's acknowledgement

Negative gearing is a tax outcome, but the structure that produces it is an interest-bearing loan - which is where the Shariah question sits.

What it is. You borrow to buy an income-producing asset; the interest and holding costs exceed the income; the loss is deducted against your other income, reducing tax. The strategy relies on capital growth to make up the shortfall.

The deduction is not the issue. The interest that creates it is riba under the standard analysis, and the analysis is unchanged by the tax treatment.

Islamic property finance structures such as ijara and murabaha produce rent or a disclosed mark-up rather than interest, and are treated differently for both Shariah and tax purposes.

The sacrifice itself is an arrangement about how you are paid. The Shariah question sits with the investment option the contributions go into.

You agree with your employer that part of your pre-tax salary is paid into super instead of to you. It is taxed at the concessional contributions rate rather than your marginal rate, subject to the annual cap.

Nothing in that arrangement involves interest or a prohibited contract. What the money then buys is the substance of the question - see the superannuation answer.

The same ones that apply to any Australian financial product. A fund being Shariah compliant neither adds protections nor removes them.

• AFSL - the issuer or its authorised representative must be licensed by ASIC to deal in or advise on the product
• Disclosure - a PDS and TMD for retail products, under ASIC's disclosure regime
• APRA - prudential supervision of superannuation funds
• AFCA - free external dispute resolution, once the provider's internal process is exhausted; membership is compulsory for licensees
• Design and distribution obligations - the product must be distributed consistently with its target market

These fields are displayed on every InvestHAQ fund profile. Registration and licensing are not endorsements.

Because they are charged on your whole balance every year, and every dollar paid in fees also forfeits the growth that dollar would have earned.

The real cost of a fee is not the fee. It is the compounding it removes.

Illustration only, using an assumed constant return. Not a forecast.

Four charges sit inside the fund, and anything you pay to reach the fund sits on top.

• Management fee - the base annual cost, disclosed as an MER or ICR
• Performance fee - a share of returns above a hurdle
• Buy-sell spread - the gap between the application and redemption prices
• Transaction costs incurred inside the fund

If you invest through a platform or an adviser, their fees are additional. Adding every layer together gives your true total cost - which is rarely the number quoted in marketing.

Both express the annual cost of owning a fund as a percentage, deducted from returns before they reach you. They are not always calculated the same way.

The Indirect Cost Ratio (ICR) is the measure used under ASIC Regulatory Guide 97 and generally captures management costs plus most other indirect costs. A Management Expense Ratio (MER) is an older, less standardised term and different issuers calculate it differently.

Disclosed fees are normalised to a single GST-inclusive basis, net of any reduced input tax credit, so two funds can be compared on the same footing.

Australian funds disclose fees inconsistently: some quote them gross of GST, some net, and some net of the reduced input tax credit that managed investment schemes can claim. Comparing the raw disclosed numbers can make a difference of several basis points look like a real cost difference when it is only a disclosure difference.

Where a fund's basis is not stated clearly enough to normalise, the profile says so rather than guessing.

An extra fee charged when a fund beats a defined hurdle - commonly 15% to 20% of the outperformance, and in some wholesale funds materially more.

Three terms in the disclosure tell you how investor-friendly it is:

• The hurdle - what must be beaten before any fee is charged
• The high-water mark - whether past losses must be recovered before the fee is charged again
• The crystallisation frequency - how often it is calculated and paid

A performance fee with no high-water mark can be charged twice on the same recovered ground.

Often yes, and partly for real reasons - but a higher fee still has to be justified by what the fund delivers net of fees.

Screening against a standard, retaining scholars, issuing and auditing certificates and calculating purification all cost money. Most Australian Islamic funds are also small, so fixed costs are spread across fewer investors. And the ASX-listed Islamic funds InvestHAQ covers are actively managed, so passive-index pricing is not on offer among them - overseas, many Islamic ETFs are passive and track a Shariah-screened index.

A range is not a ranking, and cost is not the only variable. Weigh it against risk, benchmark, disclosure quality and net performance.

The long-run evidence says usually not. The fee carries the burden of proof.

The SPIVA Australia Scorecard from S&P Dow Jones Indices found that 74% of actively managed Australian Equity General funds underperformed the S&P/ASX 200 in 2025, and 87% underperformed over the 15 years to December 2025.

That does not mean active management is never worth paying for - the ASX-listed Islamic funds InvestHAQ covers are actively managed, and the relevant comparison for them is against a screened benchmark, not the broad market. It does mean a higher fee should be visible, comparable and defended by evidence. Screening decides what a fund may hold, not how it is managed: overseas, many Islamic ETFs passively track a Shariah-screened index.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

The MER is one component. Total fees and costs is the number that actually leaves your balance.

A complete figure assembles:

• Management fees and costs
• Performance fees
• Transaction and operational costs inside the fund
• Administration or platform fees, where you invest through a platform
• Adviser service fees, where you use an adviser
• Buy-sell spreads, paid on the way in and out

InvestHAQ uses total fees and costs as the headline wherever a complete figure can be assembled from disclosure, and shows the components underneath it.

Typically an administration fee, an investment fee for your chosen option, transaction costs, sometimes a fixed dollar account fee - plus insurance premiums if you hold cover through the fund.

Super fees compound over a 40-year working life, which is why a difference that looks trivial as a percentage is not trivial as a dollar figure.

Superannuation is a long-term investment with access restrictions. Consider your circumstances, and consider licensed advice, before changing arrangements.

In the fees and costs section of the PDS for a retail fund, or the Information Memorandum for a wholesale fund.

Retail PDSs are prepared under ASIC Regulatory Guide 97, which prescribes how fees are presented and requires a worked dollar example. Information Memoranda are not held to the same standard, so a wholesale fee disclosure can be materially less complete.

The TMD is worth reading alongside it - it tells you who the product was designed for.

Itemised, normalised, and sourced - with the document and its date shown for every figure.

Each fund profile breaks out the management fee, performance fee, transaction costs, administration fees and buy-sell spread, normalised to a comparable GST-inclusive basis. Profiles also show:

• Performance net of fees against the fund's own stated benchmark
• Side-by-side comparison of up to four funds
• Shariah certification evidence on a five-level Certification Strength Scale
• A Transparency Score recording how much of the expected disclosure the fund publishes

Where a fund discloses no fee information, the profile says so. That absence is itself information.

No. InvestHAQ provides factual information only.

Nothing on the platform or in our publications is a recommendation to acquire, hold or dispose of a financial product, and nothing takes your personal circumstances into account.

We are independent: we are not affiliated with any fund manager or product issuer, and we do not receive commissions or referral fees from them.

For advice that considers your circumstances, speak with a licensed financial adviser. For a Shariah ruling, speak with a qualified scholar.

InvestHAQ is not owned by, affiliated with, or paid a commission by any fund manager or product issuer.

The commercial model, stated plainly:

• Flat-fee arrangements with providers for defined services, never linked to volume or outcomes
• No commission per application, per click or per conversion
• No payment can change a score, a sort order, a comparison result or any displayed data
• Any sponsored placement, if one ever exists, is labelled and visually separated

The register includes funds whether or not their provider has any commercial relationship with us, and a provider cannot buy their way out of a disclosure gap being visible.

No. InvestHAQ is an informant, not a certifier.

What we do: display each fund's own disclosed Shariah evidence - the board or adviser, the screening standard, the certificate and its validity window - and grade the strength of that evidence on the Certification Strength Scale.

What we do not do: issue rulings, endorse a fund as compliant, or substitute our judgement for a Shariah board's or a scholar's.

InvestHAQ provides factual information only under ASIC Regulatory Guide 244 — we are not required to hold an AFSL for this. We do not give financial advice, do not transact, and do not republish licensed index values. This is our Stage 1 position.

On a published cadence, per data type - and every field carries the date it was last verified.

• Performance - monthly, once fund data is released
• Fees and product terms - quarterly, and immediately on a material change we become aware of
• Transparency Scores and certification evidence - quarterly restrike
• Documents - on release, when a new PDS, TMD, IM or certificate is published
• Data-anchored FAQ answers - restruck with the quarterly refresh

A date on this platform changes only when the content was actually reviewed. We do not refresh a date to make unchanged information look current.

InvestHAQ is an Australian independent research and comparison platform for Shariah-compliant investment products.

The people who research the funds, set the methodology and review the content are named on the About page, with their background and the areas they cover. Answers that require religious or compliance judgement are reviewed by the relevant adviser before publication.

The return comes from owning something real - an asset, a business, a trade - rather than from lending money at a fixed rate.

Money itself is not treated as a commodity that can be rented out. A predetermined return charged for the use of money is riba, and it is excluded. What replaces it:

• Rent on an asset that is genuinely owned and leased (ijarah)
• Profit on a real sale, where the seller owned the goods and the mark-up is disclosed (murabaha)
• A share of a venture's profit, with the loss shared too (mudarabah, musharakah)
• Dividends and capital growth from owning shares in screened companies

Sukuk are often described as "Islamic bonds", but a sukuk holder owns a share of an asset and receives the income it produces; a bondholder holds a debt and receives interest.

Because listed-company screening uses tolerance thresholds, not a zero test - almost no listed company in the world would pass a zero test.

A screening standard applies financial ratios to a company's debt, its interest-bearing cash and its non-permissible income, and excludes anything above the threshold. Incidental interest income that survives the screen is then purified - the impure portion is calculated and given away.

No single threshold is universally binding, and InvestHAQ does not present one as though it were.

The fund's own Shariah board or adviser does, against a named screening standard, and reviews it on an ongoing basis. No regulator makes that decision.

In practice four things sit behind a compliance claim:

• A Shariah board or adviser, named and identifiable
• A screening standard - AAOIFI, an index methodology such as MSCI Islamic or S&P Shariah, or an in-house method
• A certificate covering a specific product for a stated period
• Ongoing review and purification between certificates

Because they may be applying different standards, different ratios, different denominators or a different reading of the same contract.

Common sources of disagreement:

• Which standard is followed, and which edition of it
• The financial-ratio thresholds and what they are measured against
• How a specific contract or structure is characterised
• Whether purification is applied by the fund or left to the investor, and how it is calculated

Disagreement is normal in a field with more than one recognised methodology. InvestHAQ reports the method each fund discloses and does not declare one board correct.

The holding is normally identified at the next screening review and disposed of within a defined window, with any tainted gain purified.

The exact treatment depends on the fund's methodology and certificate, but the pattern is consistent: periodic re-screening, a disposal period once a breach is found, purification of the non-compliant portion of income or gain, and disclosure in the fund's reporting.

For a fund as a whole, losing certification is a more serious event - it may be re-screened, restructured, or cease to be described as compliant. The fund's own disclosure is the authority on what happened and when.

No - compliance does not determine return. It changes what you are exposed to, and that can work either way.

Screening removes conventional financials and highly leveraged companies, and tilts a portfolio toward lower-debt businesses and, in Australia, away from a large part of the banking sector. In some periods that helps; in others it hurts.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

No. Anyone can invest in a Shariah-screened product, and many do so for reasons that have nothing to do with religion.

The screens overlap heavily with ethical and ESG investing - no alcohol, gambling, adult entertainment, conventional armaments or tobacco. Shariah screening then adds four things ESG generally does not: the exclusion of interest-based income, financial-ratio limits on debt, rules about the contract itself, and purification of incidental impure income.

Superannuation itself is a tax structure, not an investment. The question is what the investment option inside it holds.

A default MySuper option typically holds conventional bonds, bank shares and unscreened equities. Those holdings do not pass the financial-structure screen used by Shariah standards, which is why default super is generally not described as compliant.

APRA-regulated Shariah-compliant super options do exist in Australia and are compared on InvestHAQ. The three tests applied to any of them are the same: the underlying business activity, the contract, and the financial structure.

The ETF wrapper is neutral. Compliance depends on what the fund holds and how it is structured - not on the fact that it trades on an exchange.

An ETF that tracks a Shariah-screened index, is certified at fund level and applies purification is a different proposition from a general ethical or ESG ETF, which screens on different criteria and has no Shariah board.

Things worth checking on any ETF described as compliant: the screening standard named in the PDS, whether the certificate covers this fund or only the manager, whether a purification rate is published, and whether the fund uses synthetic exposure or physical holdings.

An interest-bearing savings account or term deposit pays riba and fails the financial-structure test.

The categories that exist in Australia for money that would otherwise sit in such an account:

• Islamic income funds - managed funds targeting a regular distribution from compliant assets
• Sukuk exposure - held directly or through a fund
• Profit-rate deposit-style products offered by Islamic finance providers

Dividends from companies that pass a recognised screen are treated as permissible by the major standards, with the incidental impure portion purified.

A screened company may still earn a small amount of interest income. The standard calculates what proportion of the company's income that represents, and that proportion of your dividend is given away rather than kept - the purification rate.

Some funds calculate and donate this on your behalf; others publish the rate and leave the donation to you. Which model applies is disclosed by the fund.

The major screening standards exclude all three.

• CFD - a leveraged contract settling the price difference on an asset you never own
• Option - a paid right, not an obligation, to buy or sell at a set price by a set date
• Short selling - selling a borrowed asset in the expectation of buying it back cheaper

The analysis rests on gharar (excessive uncertainty), maysir (gambling), the sale of something not owned, and the interest embedded in financing and borrowing costs.

InvestHAQ does not compare these instruments or the platforms that market them.

A conventional mortgage is an interest-bearing loan, which is the definition of riba. The Islamic alternatives restructure the transaction so the financier owns the asset.

Two structures are used in Australia:

• Ijara - the financier buys the property and leases it to you, with your payments split between rent and a growing ownership share
• Murabaha - the financier buys the property and sells it to you at a disclosed mark-up, payable over time

InvestHAQ compares investment products, not home finance. This answer is here because the question is asked constantly and deserves a neutral answer.

The mechanics are the same as any super switch. The sequence below describes them; it is not a suggestion that you should switch.

• Compare the options - fees, risk profile, benchmark, screening standard and disclosed Shariah evidence
• Read the PDS and the TMD for the option you are considering
• Check your insurance first - cover does not follow you (see the next answer)
• Open the new account by completing the fund's application
• Roll over your existing balance through myGov or the new fund's rollover form
• Give your employer a standard choice-of-fund form so future contributions go to the new account

In most cases yes. Choice-of-fund rules let most Australian employees nominate the fund their employer pays contributions into.

You do it by giving your employer a standard superannuation standard choice form with your fund's details, which the fund or the ATO can supply.

It does not transfer automatically. Rolling your balance out can cancel the cover attached to the old account.

What to check before you roll anything over:

• What cover you currently hold, and its amount and conditions
• Whether the new fund offers equivalent cover, and whether you must apply and be underwritten for it
• Whether waiting periods, exclusions or pre-existing-condition terms would apply to the new cover
• Whether your health or occupation has changed since the original cover started

Four documents or fields answer it, and they are the same four InvestHAQ displays for every fund it tracks.

• The PDS - what the investment option actually invests in
• The holdings disclosure - APRA-regulated funds publish portfolio holdings; look for conventional banks and interest-bearing securities
• The named screening standard - AAOIFI, an index methodology, or in-house
• The Shariah board or adviser, and a current fund-level certificate

If a fund does not name a standard or a board anywhere in its disclosure, that absence is itself the answer to your question.

The mechanics are the same as buying any ASX-listed ETF.

• Open an account with a broker; you will need a HIN or a CHESS-sponsored arrangement depending on the broker
• Read the PDS and TMD for the fund before you buy
• Find the ASX ticker for the fund
• Place a market or a limit order; a limit order sets the maximum price you will pay
• Expect brokerage and the bid-ask spread on top of the fund's own fees

InvestHAQ does not recommend brokers and receives nothing from any of them.

You apply the fund's published purification rate to the income you received, and give that amount away without expecting reward or a tax benefit.

Tazkiyah is the cleansing of the small impermissible portion of an otherwise permissible return. Two models are in use:

• The fund donates the impure portion on investors' behalf before distributing - nothing further is required of you
• The fund publishes a rate and you donate it yourself - for example, a 0.5% rate on $2,000 of distributions means $10 given away

The fund's annual disclosure states which model applies and the rate for the period. Purification is separate from zakat and does not replace it.

Across the funds in the InvestHAQ register, minimum initial investments range from around $500 to $500,000, as at 30 June 2026.

The range is wide because it spans two different product types. Retail managed funds cluster at the low end; wholesale funds sit at the high end and are only open to investors who meet the wholesale test.

Minimums for additional investments are usually far lower than the initial minimum and are shown on each fund profile.

Yes, subject to the fund's trust deed, its investment strategy and the sole-purpose test.

Three things govern it:

• The trust deed must permit the asset class
• The investment strategy must be documented and must address diversification, liquidity, risk and the members' circumstances
• The sole-purpose test - the fund must be maintained to provide retirement benefits, not present-day benefits to members

The usual SMSF rules also apply: related-party acquisition limits, in-house asset limits, arm's-length pricing and the annual audit.

InvestHAQ gives no structuring advice. Take an SMSF question to a licensed adviser and to your accountant.

Yes. "Halal" describes compliance with Shariah principles. It says nothing about safety, and it is not a guarantee.

The risks are the ordinary ones:

• Capital loss - the value of your investment can fall, and can stay down
• Income variability - distributions are not promised and can be reduced or suspended
• Market and concentration risk - screening reduces the investable universe, which can concentrate exposure
• Credit risk on the assets a fund holds
• Liquidity risk - you may not be able to withdraw when you want to

Match the product to your timeframe. A five-year asset is not somewhere to keep money you need next year.

It is the Standard Risk Measure, and it estimates how many negative annual returns an option is expected to produce in any 20 years.

• 1 Very low - fewer than 0.5 negative years in 20
• 2 Low - 0.5 to less than 1
• 3 Low to medium - 1 to less than 2
• 4 Medium - 2 to less than 3
• 5 Medium to high - 3 to less than 4
• 6 High - 4 to less than 6
• 7 Very high - 6 or more

No. Wholesale status describes investor eligibility and disclosure treatment, not the riskiness of the strategy.

What it changes is what you receive and what you can fall back on: an Information Memorandum instead of a PDS and TMD, and fewer retail protections.

That said, many wholesale products do carry higher liquidity, concentration, leverage or valuation risk, and they are less constrained in what they can hold. The strategy and the IM decide the risk - not the label.

Usually net of management fees, but "net" is not a standard term, and the benchmark beside the return may be on a different basis.

Four things to check before comparing two return figures:

• Whether the return is net of management fees, performance fees and transaction costs, or only some of them
• Whether distributions are assumed reinvested
• How tax is treated - most published returns are pre-tax at the investor level
• Whether the benchmark is shown gross or net

InvestHAQ states the convention used on every performance field, and labels sub-one-year figures as cumulative period returns rather than annualising them.

It depends on the fund's dealing terms - anywhere from a few business days to months, and in stressed conditions withdrawals can be suspended.

The terms that decide it:

• Dealing frequency - daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly
• Processing time - how long after the dealing date the money is paid
• Minimum holding period and redemption notice period
• Gates - a cap on how much can be withdrawn in one period
• The responsible entity's power to suspend withdrawals where the fund becomes illiquid

ASX-listed ETFs are different: you sell on market at the prevailing price, subject to liquidity and spread.

In a registered managed investment scheme, yes - the assets are held on trust for members, separately from the manager's own assets.

The structure typically involves a responsible entity that operates the scheme and holds the assets on trust, often with an independent custodian holding them in practice. The scheme's constitution and compliance plan govern how that works.

An unhedged fund leaves you exposed to moves in the Australian dollar; a hedged fund tries to remove that exposure, at a cost.

If you own overseas assets unhedged, a falling Australian dollar adds to your return in AUD terms and a rising one subtracts from it - regardless of how the assets themselves performed.

Hedging reduces that effect but is never free or complete: there is a cost, hedges are rebalanced periodically, and the interest-rate differential between currencies affects the result. Some Shariah-compliant funds are constrained in the hedging instruments they can use, which is disclosed in the PDS.

You are normally given notice, the assets are sold or transferred, and the net proceeds are paid to investors. It is orderly, but it is not free of consequences.

What typically happens: a notice period, possible suspension of trading or applications, sale of the portfolio or transfer to another fund, then payment of net proceeds. Being cashed out is a disposal, which can crystallise a capital gain or loss and take the decision about timing out of your hands.

A small or shrinking FUM is a closure-risk indicator, not a prediction. InvestHAQ shows FUM and fund status on every profile.

The InvestHAQ register records 11 Shariah-compliant superannuation investment options across 6 providers, as at 30 June 2026.

The count includes any investment option inside an APRA-regulated superannuation fund that is described by its trustee as Shariah compliant and for which a screening standard or Shariah board is disclosed. It counts options, not funds - one super fund can offer more than one.

It excludes SMSF arrangements, wholesale-only vehicles and options that are closed to new members.

Five ASX-listed funds screened to a Shariah standard are recorded in the register as at 30 June 2026.

• ISLM - global Shariah-screened equities
• HJZP - Australian and global Shariah-screened equities
• SKUK - sukuk / Islamic fixed-income exposure
• HJHI - Shariah-screened income strategy
• HHIF - Shariah-screened diversified strategy

Listing a ticker is not a recommendation and says nothing about cost, risk or performance. Read the PDS before buying.

Total fees and costs across the in-scope Shariah-compliant super options range from about 0.85% to 2.10% a year, as at 30 June 2026.

Figures are normalised to a GST-inclusive basis and include administration fees, investment fees and disclosed transaction costs. Fixed dollar account fees and insurance premiums are excluded, because they do not scale with the balance and would distort a percentage range.

Screened ASX-listed funds in the register charge roughly 0.39% to 0.99%; mainstream broad-market index ETFs commonly sit around 0.04% to 0.30%. Both as at 30 June 2026.

The gap reflects scale and construction. Screened funds are smaller, are rebalanced against a screened index, and carry the cost of Shariah oversight, certification and purification. A broad-market index fund has none of that.

Two ranges compared, not two products. Whether a specific screened fund is worth its fee is a question about that fund's net performance against its own benchmark.

A minority do. As at 30 June 2026 the register records a published purification rate for a small subset of the funds it tracks, and records the absence for the rest.

Publishing a rate means an investor can actually carry out purification. Where no rate is published, the investor is left to estimate, or to rely on the fund having donated on their behalf without saying so.

Results are reported fund by fund against each fund's own stated benchmark, net of fees, with the period and basis labelled. There is no single answer for the category.

Reporting rules applied to every figure:

• Sub-one-year figures are labelled cumulative period returns, never annualised
• Multi-year figures are labelled annualised where that is what they are
• CPI-linked benchmarks use the ABS CPI series, on the additive convention, stated on the profile
• Comparison is against the fund's own benchmark - not the broad market, which measures the screen rather than the manager

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Five checks, all free, all on official registers.

• ASIC Professional Registers - confirm the AFSL, or that the person is an authorised representative of a named licensee
• ASIC's Financial Advisers Register - for an individual adviser, including their authorisations and history
• ASIC investor alert list - companies you should not deal with
• AFCA membership - if they are not a member, you have no external dispute pathway
• The disclosure documents - a legitimate retail product has a PDS and a TMD, and will give them to you before you invest

No. Australian tax follows the legal form of the product and the type of income, not the religious description of it.

• Distributions from a managed fund are taxed on the components in the fund's annual tax statement - income, franked dividends, foreign income and capital gains, each with its own treatment
• Capital gains arise on disposal; the CGT discount may be available to individuals on assets held over 12 months
• Franking credits attach to Australian dividends and are declared and credited in the ordinary way
• Super is taxed inside the fund at concessional rates, with its own rules on contributions and withdrawals
• Sukuk income is generally assessable; the exact characterisation depends on the structure

Purification donations are not automatically deductible - see the purification answer below. For your own position, use a registered tax agent.

Generally yes, and each structure has different eligibility, tax and compliance consequences.

• Company - profits taxed at the company rate; franking flows through on distribution; no CGT discount
• Family trust - income distributed to beneficiaries and taxed in their hands; the trust deed governs what it can hold
• SMSF - concessional tax treatment, but bound by the trust deed, the investment strategy requirement and the sole-purpose test

Note that an entity may reach the wholesale threshold when an individual would not, which changes the disclosure you receive.

InvestHAQ gives no structuring recommendation. This is a question for a licensed adviser and your accountant.

Not directly in most cases - a minor generally cannot hold the investment in their own name, so an adult, trust or custodial arrangement is used.

The common approaches are an account held by a parent as trustee for the child, a formal trust, or a broker's minor account. Whichever is used, two things need attention:

• Beneficial ownership - who the ATO treats as owning the income matters, and it is not always the name on the account
• Minors' tax rates - penalty rates apply to unearned income of minors above a low threshold, which can make a poorly structured account expensive

Check the broker's and the fund's own rules, and take the tax question to a registered tax agent.

Complain to the provider first, in writing. If that does not resolve it, take it to AFCA - free to you, and binding on the provider.

• 1 Internal dispute resolution - put it in writing to the provider and keep a copy. Licensees must respond within prescribed timeframes
• 2 Keep records - the response, your documents, dates and what you were told
• 3 AFCA - the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, if the provider is a member and the internal process is exhausted or the timeframe has passed

ASIC takes reports of misconduct but does not resolve individual disputes or recover your money. APRA supervises super funds prudentially and likewise does not handle individual complaints.

From the fund's own published documents, in a fixed order of authority, with the source and date recorded for every field.

The source hierarchy, strongest first:

• PDS / TMD for retail products; IM for wholesale
• Shariah certificate and the board's own statement
• Audited annual report and financial statements
• Monthly factsheet or performance update
• ASX and regulatory disclosures
• Direct written confirmation from the provider, recorded and dated

Which source prevails depends on the field: fees come from the PDS or IM, performance from the factsheet or audited report, certification from the certificate itself. That mapping is published in the methodology.

The higher-authority source wins, we ask the provider, and where a conflict stays unresolved we display it rather than pick a side.

• 1 Apply the hierarchy - the PDS or IM outranks a factsheet, which outranks a website page
• 2 Check the dates - a current factsheet may legitimately supersede an older PDS figure
• 3 Escalate - put the discrepancy to the provider in writing and record the response
• 4 Where it remains unresolved - display the authoritative figure, note that sources conflict, and show the last verified date

The evidence behind each decision is retained, so a figure can always be traced back to the document it came from.

That on that date, a person checked the displayed value against the source document and confirmed it matched.

The record includes what was checked, which source was checked, and who checked it.

If a field has not been verified recently, the date says so plainly rather than being refreshed to look current.

For one of a small number of objective reasons - never because of who the provider is or whether they pay us anything.

• Outside the published scope of the register
• Closed to new investors, or terminated
• Insufficient public information to populate the required fields
• A duplicate unit class of a fund already listed
• Awaiting verification before first publication
• Does not meet the published inclusion definition

If you believe a fund should be listed, or you are a provider whose fund is missing, submit it and we will assess it against the published inclusion criteria.

No. Inclusion in the register is determined by the published inclusion criteria and nothing else.

Basic inclusion - the profile, the data, the Transparency Score, the comparison - is not purchasable and not withdrawable. A provider cannot pay to be listed, and cannot pay to be removed from a comparison they would rather not appear in.

Optional commercial services, where a provider takes one, are separate, defined and disclosed. What such a service can never do is covered in the next answer.

No. This is the safeguard the whole platform rests on.

No payment, relationship or commercial discussion can alter:

• Any displayed data point
• The Transparency Score, or the methodology behind it
• The default sort order of any list
• The outcome of a factual comparison
• Whether a disclosure gap is shown

Any sponsored placement, if one is ever introduced, will be labelled as such and visually separated from editorial results. The conflicts register records every commercial relationship we hold.

Send the correct figure with the source document that evidences it. We verify against the document, not against the request.

• Evidence required - the source document, the page or field, and its date
• Review - checked against the source hierarchy by a researcher who did not enter the original value
• Service level - acknowledged within two business days; resolved within ten, or a status given
• Audit trail - the previous value, the new value, the evidence and the date are retained
• Display - the corrected field carries a new last-verified date

No. We review what is disclosed. We do not inspect the assets, and we do not replace the fund's auditor or its Shariah board.

What we verify is that the platform accurately reflects the fund's own published documents, and that the documents are current. What we cannot verify is whether the portfolio actually matches what the documents say, or whether the screening was correctly applied to every holding.

That is the auditor's and the Shariah board's role, and it is why the identity of both is a field on every fund profile.

No. A listing means the product is within the published scope and we captured enough information to display it.

A listing is not:

• Financial product advice, or a recommendation to invest
• An endorsement of the fund, its manager or its performance
• A Shariah ruling, or agreement with the fund's compliance claim
• A guarantee of performance, of capital, or of continued availability

Funds we would consider poorly disclosed are listed too - with the gaps visible. Excluding them would hide exactly the information a reader needs.