India's interest-free cooperative sector has three institutions documented deeply enough to compare properly: Al-Khair of Patna, Bait-Un-Nas'r of Mumbai and Janseva of Mumbai. All three take interest-free deposits, lend to members without interest, belong to the Sahulat network, and share the sector's two structural facts: no DICGC deposit insurance and no Shariah board. Beyond that, they differ where choosing actually happens: geography, pricing transparency, product depth and doctrine. This comparison is built from their own published terms, verified August 6, 2026.
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Geography decides first
For most people the choice is made by the map. Al-Khair operates under registration MSCS/CR/136/2002 in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, with 11 listed branches concentrated in Bihar plus Lucknow and Jamia Nagar. Bait-Un-Nas'r is Maharashtra-only, registration BOM/RSR/786 of 1976, with nine branches tracing Mumbai's working-class Muslim neighbourhoods from Mahim and Dharavi to Mumbra. Janseva holds the widest permission, twelve states from Maharashtra and Karnataka to West Bengal and Rajasthan, delivered through branches and Area Managing Boards whose density varies considerably across that footprint. In Mumbai, Bait-Un-Nas'r and Janseva overlap and a member could reasonably hold accounts at both; in Bihar, UP and Delhi, Al-Khair and Janseva overlap; elsewhere, check Janseva's network page and Sahulat's affiliate directory for what actually operates near you.
Vintage and track record
Bait-Un-Nas'r wins the longevity comparison outright: established October 1, 1976 with INR 11,635, it is the sector's proof of survival across every cycle since, with a 2019 peer-reviewed case study documenting 94,871 members as of 2018 and a stated A audit classification. Al-Khair dates to 2002, Janseva to 2010, though Janseva's promoter AICMEU has run interest-free services through its Baitulmal society since 1984. Age is not safety, no deposit here is insured regardless of vintage, but five decades of continuous operation is the strongest institutional evidence this sector can offer.
Pricing transparency: Al-Khair's category win
If you want to know what a loan costs before entering a branch, only Al-Khair tells you. Its printed schedule: 8 percent one-time on the 3-month business loan, 16 to 18 percent one-time on 8-to-12-month loans, plus GST, under board rules dated December 31, 2011. Bait-Un-Nas'r prices through an annual-rate service charge calculator without printing actual product rates. Janseva publishes no charges at all, with terms board-decided. This matters twice over: practically, because comparison shopping requires numbers, and doctrinally, because the pricing structures differ in fiqh weight. Al-Khair's one-time flat charges do not accrue with time; Bait-Un-Nas'r's annual-rate model does, making it the most interest-like structure in the sector. Both sit inside the unresolved service-charge debate covered in is a service charge riba, with the full arithmetic in the true cost of interest-free loans.
Product depth: different shelves for different lives
Al-Khair's shelf is built for daily earners: doorstep Daily Deposit collection from INR 50, the liquid Amanat account, Haj savings, and business loans matched to inventory cycles. Its eligibility gates are the heaviest, with balance and shares each at 10 percent of a loan plus guarantors and security. Bait-Un-Nas'r runs the most bank-like shelf: five deposit schemes including the sector's only stated return product, a Term Deposit at up to 10 percent profit sharing with unpublished mechanics, and five loan lines including gold, vehicle and property-secured qard hasan, the widest secured menu in the sector. Janseva's shelf is the doctrinal one: qard-e-hasanah demand deposits, amanah current accounts, a compulsory INR 10-a-day savings scheme with a two-year lock-in on the minimum, an opt-in investment-deposit family, a published loan priority ladder that puts rescuing members from interest-bearing debt first with share requirements of just 2.5 to 5 percent, and the SHG microfinance program that graduates groups into 70/30 profit-sharing partnerships.
Doctrine and disclosure
Janseva leads on doctrine: a founding Quran-and-Sunnah resolution printed on its site, contracts named in fiqh terms, and bylaws that already authorise Murabaha through Istisna. Al-Khair leads on disclosure: real numbers on real pages. Bait-Un-Nas'r leads on institutional evidence: the longest record and the only independent academic study, which also flagged the sector's honest tension, statutory books kept in conventional interest terminology to satisfy cooperative reporting. None of the three publishes a Shariah board, so in every case the burden of doctrinal judgment sits with the member.
Costs of entry and exit, compared
The joining arithmetic differs more than the headline products. Al-Khair's entry is INR 200 all-in, ten INR 10 shares plus INR 50 admission and INR 50 donation, with the shares non-refundable for three years. Janseva's General tier costs INR 1,000 in shares plus 1 percent processing and INR 10 admission, about INR 1,020, with associate membership from INR 10 for those easing in, and its compulsory savings scheme adds an ongoing INR 10-a-day commitment with a two-year lock on the minimum. Bait-Un-Nas'r does not print its membership costs online, so budget for a branch conversation. Exit matters too: share capital across the sector is the member's committed equity, refundable per each society's bylaws rather than on demand, and deposit withdrawal rules range from Al-Khair's one-month Daily Deposit lag to Janseva's anytime-above-minimum promise. Read entry and exit together before choosing, because switching societies later costs both time and locked capital.
On the deposit side, the differences are sharper than the loan side. A saver who wants pure safekeeping is equally served everywhere: nothing pays interest anywhere. A saver who wants a shot at a halal return on term money has exactly one option, Bait-Un-Nas'r's profit-sharing Term Deposit, with the mechanics to confirm in writing. A saver who wants explicit fiqh contracts on the account itself, qard-e-hasanah and amanah by name, has only Janseva. And a daily-cash earner who needs the collector to come to the stall is best matched to Al-Khair's Daily Deposit or Bait-Un-Nas'r's Spot Deposit, the two doorstep products, by whichever operates in their city.
What the comparison cannot tell you
A table of features misses the variable that will dominate your actual experience: the branch. All three institutions are branch-delivered community finance, and the difference between a well-run branch and a tired one inside the same society is often larger than the difference between the societies themselves. Before committing, visit the branch you would use, ask for the printed schedule of charges, ask how collections and repayments actually work week to week, and ask to see the latest audited accounts. Every society in this comparison can satisfy those requests. The comparison also cannot decide the fiqh question for you: the service-charge structures that fund these institutions are debated, the debate is covered honestly in the service charge riba debate, and a member for whom that debate matters should read it before joining rather than after. What the comparison can tell you is that all three are registered, audited, decades-old and uninsured, and that the right one is almost always the one whose branch you can reach.
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The choice, summarised
Live in the north and want doorstep saving with published loan prices: Al-Khair, with eyes open on the three-year share lock and the heavier loan gates. Live in Mumbai and want secured credit lines or a possible profit share on term money: Bait-Un-Nas'r, with the discipline to demand rates and profit-share mechanics in writing at the branch. Want fiqh-labelled contracts, the lightest share requirements, SHG group finance, or you live in one of Janseva's nine other states: Janseva, with the same demand for written loan terms and a clear view of the compulsory savings lock-in. In every case, size your deposits to the uninsured reality explained in are cooperative society deposits safe, and remember the sector explainer at interest-free credit societies explained for the model behind all three.