Bank Awards in Saving Accounts; a Jurisprudential Analysis

One of the prevalent kinds of bank accounts is saving account which receives no profit at all, but in order to persuade their customers to open this kind of accounts, banks sometimes give some awards by draw. As this kind of accounts has explicitly been assumed of debt nature, and as, according to the Islamic jurisprudence, debt accompanied with extra provision is called Riba and regarded illegitimate, this question arises whether depositing with the aim of receiving bank awards is regarded as an instance of Riba-debt. The present article, using a descriptive-analytical approach, tries to show that although some regard receiving awards absolutely illegitimate, bank awards’ being an instance of Riba-debt depends entirely on the depositor’s intention and his interaction with the bank. If the intention, here, is to receive awards, so that the customers claim a legal right, the jurisprudential verdict of Riba-debt’s being illegitimate is valid; but otherwise one cannot prove it to be correct. The different kinds of customers’ attitudes are explicated with the positive standards as well.