Historically, Muslims used various payment forms to contribute to their Zakat Fitrah, from rice to fiat money and digital payment as the medium. Paying Zakat Fitrah in Malaysia using FinTech is getting attention in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A rigorous study must be conducted to understand users’ behavioural intention to adopt the technology. The behavioural model of intention from the Theory of Planned Behaviour and its development, including technology as per the UTAUT model, can be used as the underpinning theory. Some insights from the past studies become the literature reviews that were used to develop the hypotheses. As a result, a conceptual framework is proposed using the modified UTAUT model to study the acceptance of Muslims towards paying Zakat Fitrah via FinTech.

Pandemic of Covid-19 has changed a lot of Malaysian’s lifestyle including introduction of paying the zakat fitrah via finance technology. There was some debate on the perception of public on adapting this method of payment. Through this discussion, Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) will be used as the conceptual framework to evaluate the acceptance level of sample. Hence, the researchers will discuss the social influence and facilitating condition factors that might have influenced towards the behaviour of paying zakat using fintech. The main aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework to measure the acceptance level on using fintech as the means of zakat fitrah’s collection. In addition, it will identify the relationships between social influence and facilitating conditions with behavioural intention. As a result, it will help related parties to understand the Malaysian’s perception on adapting fintech in Islamic finance and identify the right strategic to promote and educate. Finding of this study may assist and encourage the related authorities to apply the usage of technology in Islamic finance as a leapfrog to modernize the world of Islam.

In the 21st Century, most economic models are based on profits, which creates a social gap and injustice. Under the Islamic economic model, besides making an appropriated profit, the wealth will also be redistributed to the eight needed groups known as asnaf through Zakat. As a result, Zakat helps to protect the interest of the unfortunate and close the social and economic gap. Therefore, the zakat objectives cover Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that can improve humans worldwide. Besides helping asnaf, Zakat can be distributed to affected groups during crises and disasters like COVID-19. Hence, to facilitate and make progress smooth, Zakat must be managed by an institution and apply financial technology (FinTech). Thus, this paper attempt to review the related pieces of literature on SDG, redistribution of wealth and the role of Zakat during COVID-19. The methodology of this article is through library research based on the document- analysis of previous articles and literature on Zakat between 2010 until 2020. Therefore, Zakat is the best economy tool to purity and bless the wealth worldwide, especially the Muslim countries. Zakat is among the tool in reducing and eliminating poverty in Malaysia.