Sharia P2P: When Figures Look Alike, Their Essence Is Not Necessarily the Same

The matter of business competition in the peer-to-peer lending industry should not stop at a question that is too superficial: whether or not there are similarities in market figures. What should be questioned more is this: whether the legal object being assessed was properly understood from the outset, or was it simply oversimplified so that structurally different business models are treated as if they are the same. In two previous articles on CNBC Indonesia, attention was directed at the KPPU’s ruling on the P2P industry and the potential disharmony between the OJK’s economic benefit limits and the reading of Article 5 of Law 5/1999. This article goes one step further: its focus is no longer on the case and policy coordination, but on the accuracy of how to categorise the legal object being assessed, especially when Sharia business models are treated as identical to conventional ones. At this point, Sharia P2P becomes both interesting and prone to misunderstanding. It is often positioned as if it is no more than conventional P2P using different terminology. As if, when the word ‘interest’ is replaced with ‘margin’, ‘ujrah’, or ‘profit sharing’, the substance is automatically the same. This way of reading appears practical, but in a legal context, it can leave behind conceptual problems that are not simple. In the principles of fiqh, there is one highly relevant maxim: al-hukmu ‘ala asy-syai’ far’un ‘an tashawwurihi. This means the legal ruling on something depends on the accuracy of understanding what is being assessed. If the object has not been understood precisely, then the legal assessment born from it also risks not being entirely on target. Sharia P2P needs to be read starting from its fundamental construction. The OJK defines LPBBTI as a service that brings together fund providers and fund recipients directly through an electronic system, both conventionally and based on Sharia principles. The mechanism is also clear: funds from providers enter via a virtual account or payment gateway into the organiser’s escrow account, then are forwarded to the recipient; upon repayment, the flow moves in the opposite direction from the recipient to the escrow account, then back to the provider. From this flow, one important thing is visible: the platform is not the party lending its own money. It is the system organiser, process manager, and transaction facilitator. Therefore, its legal relations are never singular. There is the relationship between the investor and the platform, the relationship between the funds and the recipient’s project or needs, and the economic benefits arising from each of these relationship nodes. This is where categorisation becomes important. In Sharia P2P, the investor-platform relationship is commonly framed through wakalah or wakalah bi al-ujrah; the investor grants authority, the platform performs selection, administration, processing, and management functions, then obtains ujrah or a service fee. Meanwhile, the economic relationship underpinning the funding to the recipient can take the form of mudharabah, musyarakah, or al-bai’ murabahah, depending on the business model and the contract used. Observing this, it appears that not every percentage figure in Sharia P2P can be equated with interest. The platform fee is a reward paid to the organiser for the service of managing and facilitating funding. In a Sharia scheme, a fee tied through contracts such as wakalah bi al-ujrah is known as ujrah, which is a service reward recognised in fiqh muamalah. Margin is the profit in transactions based on a specific sale-and-purchase or financing arrangement. As for profit sharing in mudharabah or musyarakah, it is a nisbah on business results, not a price on money per se. This is not a debate merely about terminology. In contract law theory, the name of a performance determines from where the right is born, how risk is shared, and to what extent the taking of benefit can be justified. In fiqh muamalah, this dividing line is even more explicit: an addition in qardh moves within an area highly sensitive to the prohibition of riba, whereas margin in sale-and-purchase, ujrah in services, and nisbah in partnerships are justified because each is born from a different and clear legal causa. The problem begins to become more complex when all these elements are bundled by the regulator into one umbrella term: ‘economic benefits’. SEOJK 19/2023 and SEOJK 19/2025 include interest, margin, profit sharing, administrative fees, commission fees, platform fees, ujrah, and various other fees as part of the total economic benefit that must be calculated overall. From a consumer protection standpoint, this approach is understandable, because the regulator needs to capture the total burden borne by the fund recipient, whatever the legal label of each component. However, at this point, caution is still necessary. The category of ‘economic benefits’ may be adequate for reading the total burden from a consumer protection angle, but it is not necessarily always appropriate to be treated as a single category to assess all its legal consequences. When interest, margin, fees, ujrah, and profit sharing are treated as identical just because they all appear in the form of a percentage figure, there is a risk of a categorical leap that can blur the difference in essence between each of these elements. Yet in Sharia P2P, especially those based on mudharabah or musyarakah, the determination of returns is not born from a mass tariff logic. It is born from a feasibility analysis of the project, sector, cash flow, business prospects, and risk profile being financed. The OJK itself requires organisers to provide a risk analysis, carry out verification, perform scoring, and assess the feasibility of fund recipients; even the feasibility assessment function cannot be outsourced. The consequence is simple but important: if the project being funded differs, the risk profile will also differ, and therefore the final percentage will also be different.