The main objective of this study is to identify the main determinants of the Islamic banks' performance in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regions. The research uses both static model (fixed effects and random effects) and Generalized method of Moments (GMM). The data for this study are obtained from the annual reports of 29 Islamic banks from GCC countries using Bankscope database for the period from 2005 to 2013. The empirical findings reveal that Islamic banks' specific factors such as the equity financing and bank size are positive and statistically significant to the profitability of Islamic banks. The operating efficiency ratio is negatively and statistically significant to return on asset.

Studies of Islamic banks' profitability are an important tool towards improving performance, evaluating bank operations and determining management plan to help in increasing the chance for the banks to survive in competitive markets. The robust growth in financing and investment activities across most jurisdictions in various real sectors has helped Islamic banks to record generous asset growth rates in their balance sheets. However, the returns become subdued during the financial crisis of years of 2008-2009, reaching lows of ROA 0.74% and ROE 6.16% in 2009 (IFSB, 2014). Over the last twenty years, market conditions in banking sector have undergone extensive changes on both demand and supply sides ...

Islamic banks are highly incorporated with social issues because of their rules and regulations. Profit not only depends on its own return and investment but also on trust, moral issues which may be more related to banking profitability. To test these gaps, this chapter attempts to investigate the socioeconomic factors along with bank-specific factors of global Islamic banks using dynamic GMM and Quantile regression. The dataset used in this study involves 55 full-fledged Islamic Banks from 24 countries across the globe. The results suggest that Return on Assets (ROA) is significantly positive to bank-specific factors such as credit risk has and statistically negative to cost-to-income ratio. Available in physical copy and e-book (Call Number: HG 187.4 M174)

Studies on Islamic banks' profitability are important towards improving performance, evaluating bank operations and determining management plan to survive in competitive markets. The present study seeks to fill a gap by providing new empirical evidence on the factors that influence the profitability of the Islamic banks. The ordinary least square method is employed using annual data of 2013 on 44 Islamic banks from Asian and African region. The findings reveal that bank-specific factors such as the operating efficiency ratio are negatively and statistically significant to the profitability of the Islamic banks, while equity financing is positive and statistically significant to the profitability. The credit risks and liquidity risks factors are insignificant on the performance of the Islamic banks. On the other hand, macroeconomic factors such as inflation have a positive and significant impact on the profitability whereas GDP growth rate has no significant impact on the profitability of Islamic banks.