Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — The Islamic Finance Consulting Board (IFCB) has announced the termination of its cooperation with Uzbekistan-based investment company IMAN Invest, alleging irregularities in the handling of investor funds and a financial shortfall of several million US dollars.
Rustam Rakhmatov, founder of IMAN Holding, has rejected the allegations, saying the dispute arose from disagreements over the terms of cooperation. The company said it had launched an independent Sharia audit and planned to publish the results.
IFCB outlined its position in a video address by Islamic finance specialist Mahmud Usmon and lawyer Husain Rajabov. The advisory firm alleges that IMAN Invest’s management used entrusted funds in ways that violated Islamic finance principles, internal documents and Uzbekistan’s legislation.
According to IFCB representatives, even after funds recoverable through available trading operations are collected, the company will be unable to return several million dollars to investors. The board attributed the situation primarily to management decisions and financial transactions.
IFCB is a private Uzbek consulting company specialising in Islamic finance and Sharia auditing. It is not a state regulator and is not affiliated with the Central Bank of Uzbekistan’s Council on Islamic Finance.
What IFCB says its review found
According to the consultants, they worked with IMAN Invest for more than two years but never issued a final positive opinion confirming that the company’s entire business complied with Islamic finance principles. IFCB also claims that some transactions were not submitted for its approval, despite this being required under the terms of cooperation.
In July 2026, the board received documents it considered evidence of questionable transactions. It subsequently established an audit commission involving financial, legal and Sharia audit specialists. The review lasted three and a half months, with the final financial analysis completed on 15 October.
IFCB said some of the violations identified had been acknowledged by company management representatives in written explanations.
The commission focused in particular on the use of investment funds for purposes that, in the consultants’ assessment, did not align with the company’s stated business model. Disputed expenditures included purchases of expensive cars, management costs, salaries, marketing and event organisation.
IFCB alleges that the company also withheld some information from the consultants and distributed profits to investors despite the risk that part of their capital might not be recovered.
IMAN Invest uses the mudarabah model, under which one party provides capital and another manages it for business purposes. Profits are distributed according to the agreement. IFCB argues that distributing profits while capital losses remain unrecovered is inconsistent with Islamic finance principles.
The board recommended that investors refrain from investing in the company until the identified violations are addressed, losses are compensated and investor agreements are revised. IFCB also demanded that IMAN Invest stop using its name and the names and photographs of its board members in promotional materials.
IMAN founder disputes the allegations
Rakhmatov said he disagreed with IFCB’s findings. According to his statement, the company worked with the consultant for approximately two and a half years and paid it more than US$100,000 during that period.
Rakhmatov claims the disagreement began after the company decided to reduce payments to the consultant. He also alleged that IMAN was asked to provide a substantial stake in IMAN Holding, a proposal that its partners rejected.
The founder also disputed the claim that no positive opinion had been issued following previous reviews. He said the company underwent an audit about two years ago and that its operations were then found to comply with Sharia requirements.
IFCB, however, maintains that it never issued a final opinion confirming that all of IMAN Invest’s activities complied with Islamic finance principles.
Rakhmatov said the company had begun working with a new international audit organisation and planned to present the results in approximately one month. He added that IMAN continued to bear responsibility to its investors and partners and intended to resolve the dispute through legal channels.
Documents concerning car purchases
On 26 October, Mahmud Usmon published additional documents in response to Rakhmatov’s statements. The IFCB representative said the board had written explanations from company executives, audit commission decisions, records of financial transactions and recordings of online meetings made with participants’ consent.
One of the published documents concerns a transfer of US$128,000 from the account of the limited partnership IMAN Halal Investments to the account of Founders Trust 1 LLC on 10 April 2026. According to the document, the transfer was made under a consortium agreement signed the previous day, and the money was used to purchase a Mercedes-Benz S500 for Rakhmatov.
The audit commission raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest: the head of Founders Trust 1, which received the funds, was also an employee of IMAN. The commission considered the transaction insufficiently justified on economic grounds and inconsistent with investors’ interests.
A decision dated 3 July 2026 proposed selling the vehicle or transferring ownership to an investor and returning the funds to the limited partnership. If the sale proceeds were insufficient to cover the original amount, the commission proposed recovering the difference from Rakhmatov.
Another case involved a BYD Champion that Rakhmatov purchased in instalments under an agreement dated 1 December 2023. The initial price was 420 million soums, while the total payments scheduled over 36 months amounted to 555.1 million soums. The down payment was 120 million soums.
According to the commission’s decision, the final payment was made on 4 May 2025, after which payments stopped. At the time of the review, overdue debt had reached 306.5 million soums, while total remaining obligations stood at 366.9 million soums. The commission instructed Rakhmatov to settle the overdue amount and comply with a revised payment schedule.
The published copy of the document contains an acknowledgement mark and a signature that Usmon attributes to Rakhmatov. The signature’s authenticity has not been independently confirmed. The materials provided also do not establish whether the vehicles were subsequently sold or the relevant obligations repaid.
Documents cite US$2.97 million in debt and a US$9.5 million troubled portfolio
Another document attached to a decision by the sole participant of IMAN Halal Investments LLC dated 2 July 2026 describes issues identified during a preliminary audit.
According to the materials, the management company regularly borrowed funds from the IMAN Halal Investments limited partnership to cover its own expenses. As of 31 May 2026, the management company owed the partnership US$2.97 million.
The document’s authors considered this practice inconsistent with the terms governing investment funds, as administrative expenses were being covered using capital intended for investment.
The document also lists average monthly payroll expenses of US$300,000 and marketing costs of up to US$124,000. According to its authors, more than 60% of total expenses related to activities not directly connected with the partnership’s operations. The cited examples include US$144,000 spent on the launch event for IMANUM 5.0 and US$187,000 on the private banking business.
Questions were also raised about the buy now, pay later (BNPL) instalment portfolio. As of 31 May, troubled obligations in this segment were estimated at approximately US$9.5 million, or 17–18% of the relevant portfolio.
The document’s authors also alleged that instalment income was included in dividend calculations before payments had actually been received from customers.
However, the management company’s US$2.97 million debt and the US$9.5 million troubled portfolio are separate indicators. The documents do not establish that either amount represents unrecoverable investor losses, nor do they justify adding the figures to the several-million-dollar shortfall alleged by IFCB.
The appendix states that Rakhmatov undertook to resolve the financial issues, including by selling part of his stake in the company or attracting additional capital.
IMAN announces independent Sharia audit
In an official statement, IMAN said it took IFCB’s claims seriously and understood investors’ concerns.
The company said it had agreed to conduct an independent Sharia audit involving Usmani’s, an auditing organisation associated with mufti Hasan Usmani, the son of Islamic scholar Muhammad Taqi Usmani. According to IMAN, the audit had already begun and its findings would be published regardless of the auditors’ conclusions.
The company also announced the creation of a new internal Islamic finance council involving several recognised scholars. Until the council begins its work, IMAN has suspended the launch of new products and changes to existing ones. The company said further decisions would be made after the council’s approval.
IMAN urged investors not to make hasty decisions until the circumstances had been clarified.
Background on IMAN
IMAN is an Uzbek fintech company developing products based on Islamic finance principles. Its founders include Rustam Rakhmatov. The ecosystem includes the IMAN Invest investment service, the IMAN Nasiya instalment platform and the IMANUM super app.
Its business model involves attracting private investment to finance trade transactions, instalment sales, real estate and other projects, with profits distributed among participants.
According to figures published by the company in March 2026, the ecosystem had more than 500,000 users across 52 countries, while over 60,000 users had entrusted their capital to it.
In January 2026, IMAN Holding reported that it had attracted US$23 million in investment in 2025, a 149% increase from the previous year. It said the number of new investors reached 11,450, while sales and financing volume totalled US$35.9 million.
In September 2025, Murad Nazarov, founder of Murad Buildings, invested US$2 million in IMAN Holding and joined the holding company’s supervisory board. In late September 2026, the company opened a premium office for investors in Tashkent, headed by Thomas Funnell, who previously worked at HSBC Private Bank and Credit Suisse.
The statements by IFCB and IMAN reflect the respective positions of the parties to the dispute. Definitive conclusions about the disputed transactions and the scale of any potential losses require independent verification of the documents and the audit findings.
