2. Expert Insights

Islamic banking has thus far mimicked conventional banking with the result that the same problems and outcomes have surfaced, even though it is operating within an interest free framework. This apparent "convergence" has led to disaffection both among consumers of Islamic banking services and policy makers. This paper proposes a risk sharing model for Islamic banks that can potentially pull Islamic banking away from this path dependency. Under the proposal an Islamic bank's assets would be securitized by the issuance of sukuk type instruments that have the same underlying contract and average "duration" as customer financing. Small assets may have to be pooled into tranches of similar maturity before being securitized. Medium and larger assets would have papers issued directly against them. Thus, instead of depositors, an Islamic bank would have thousands of sukuk holders, all of whom share the profits and losses arising from their respective tagged asset. Other than Wadiah based safe custody accounts and current accounts against which the bank holds cash, all other depositors would be "sold" sukuk for the amount, duration and risk level that they prefer. The model has several advantages such as, minimizing systemic risk through risk dissipation and reducing the liquidity mismatch inherent to banking. The securitized papers provide new liquidity instruments and can enhance liquidity within the Islamic finance sector. Where the macro economy is concerned, the proposal enhances system stability by reducing risk concentration within the banking system, substantially widens financial inclusion by way of small denomination sukuk and minimizes the contingent liabilities of governments by avoiding the use of deposit insurance.

Interview session with Prof. Dr. Abbas Mirakhor, First Holder of INCEIF's Chair in Islamic Finance on "Issues in Islamic finance: financial crises caused by a lack of risk sharing".

This article discusses one of the myths and the new realities of risk sharing. The myth is that risk sharing contracts are costly and demand more information than debt based contracts. The reality is that risk sharing contracts are incentive-compatible contract because there is an incentive structure in place to elicit truth-telling, trust, cooperation, hard work, and efficiency in resource management; factors that could not be written into contracts and enforced. Hence, the contracts attenuate coordination problem and improve the efficiency of outcomes.

Interview session with Prof. Dr. Abbas Mirakhor, First Holder of INCEIF's Chair in Islamic Finance on "Perspective on Islamic finance: what is risk sharing".

In her book, Payback, 2008, Margaret Atwood claimed: "In Heaven, there are no debts, all have been paid, one way or another; but in Hell there's nothing but debts, and a great deal of payment is exacted, though you can't ever get all paid up. You have to pay, and pay, and keep on paying. So Hell is like an infernal maxed-out credit card that multiplies the charges endlessly." Publication of this book coincided with the Crisis of 2007/2008. Since then, there has been a proliferation of books on the subject of debt, beginning with a book by Reinhart and Rogoff, This Time Is Different. In the book, the authors argued that "though labeled as banking or currency, or even balance of payment crises--all financial crises are at root debt crises. Massive accumulation of private speculative debt in the run up to the 2007/2008 crisis showed that this time was no different". Aside from many books, well-researched theoretical and empirical papers published since then have established a nexus between credit, debt, leverage and onset of financial crisis.

The slides highlight: 1) uncertainty and risk - transfer, shift or share; 2) the first myth and reality - is the regime of risk transfer sustainable? Impossible contract; 3) the second myth and reality - translating risk sharing into new realities: network effects and big data machine learning.

Finance can be thought of as an engine of transformation and intermediation that bridges gaps between financial surplus and deficit units, between now and the future and between certainty of now and uncertainty of the future. It transforms value through maturity and risk transformation. This crucial function can be considered the reason for existence of finance. It creates incentives for surplus units to postpone the certainty of their financial resources now to the uncertainty of, presumably, higher amount of these resources in the future. It also encourages the deficit units to bring the future uncertain plans forward to the more certain present. Both units take risks. In other words, finance makes both units risk takers. The surplus units risk their resources now for more in a highly uncertain future. The deficit units risk being able to validate their obligations with a higher income stream in an uncertain future. How can finance become sacralised?

Automatically, risk shifting is absent in an ideal Islamic financial system (The Kuala Lumpur Declaration, 2012). Creating an opportunity for shared prosperity is a litmus test of the authenticity of Islamic banking. The present formation of Islamic finance has grown out of conventional finance and it uses its instruments.