In the earliest phase of their development, commercial banks were monolithic entities taking loans (in the form of deposits) at low interest, and giving loans at high interest. Interest was this at the heart of banking.
Ever since then banks have metamorphosed into multidimensional entities pursuing activities both related and unrelated to the original core activity of lending. And on the periphery of those multiple activities stood activities that stood in an auxiliary and capacitating relation to the bank’s other pursuits. One of these is the field of your own employment with the bank: marketing.
Between the marketing departments of a store like Pick ‘n Pay and that of Standard Bank there is a certain similarity, and also a certain dissimilarity.
The similarity lies in the fact that you are providing an enabling service to an entity who sells/provides both permissible and impermissible products/services. Pick ‘n Pay sells a range of permissible products, as well as wine. Banks provide both permissible and impermissible services.
The dissimilarity lies in the identification of core services. At heart banks are still essentially lenders, and when they lend they lend at interest. For all the various names and descriptions into which the usurious loan is wrapped up (credit card, overdraft, revolving credit, etc.) it remains at the core one single abomination.
It would therefore be more apt to compare a commercial bank to a bottle store selling a few permissible products, than to a retailer like Pick ‘n Pay.
Against this backdrop I now come to your own situation.
Within an entity such as this, the service one provides may be either to a specific sector within the bank, or to all its sectors without discrimination.
The ḥukm of providing services to a specific sector within the bank will be determined according to the nature of activity within that sector. Where that activity is permissible, the provision of auxiliary services would similarly be permissible.
When the auxiliary service is rendered to the entire bank, the ḥukm would have to be compartmentalized: for such of its activities that are permissible, the provision of service would be permissible.
Now, you would by now have noticed that I have not as yet touched upon the provision of auxiliary service to a bank’s non-permissible activities, neither for the sector-specific activities nor for the full range of lives the bank’s activities.
This is because of a certain nuance inherent within the broad spectrum of auxiliary services. Some of these services are very general and hold no direct or indirect relation to banking: cleaners and tea ladies, for example. One could refer to these as unrelated auxiliary services. And others are connected to the bank’s core business in an enabling and capacitating manner. These might be referred to as related auxiliary services.
About unrelated auxiliary services I am persuaded that the ḥukm of taḥrīm that applies to the bank’s core business does not extend to these auxiliary services.
However, I cannot say the same for related auxiliary services which fulfil the function of directly facilitating and enabling the bank to pursue the full range of its activities.
I reiterate that the provision of related auxiliary services will be jāʾiz for such of the bank’s activities that are essentially permissible.
But having stated that caveat, I cannot say the same for the provision of enabling auxiliary services for the bank’s activities that fall within the ḥarām domain.
There is another potential angle to this matter which I will explore later, in shāʾ Allah.
For the moment, though, this is as far as I have come.