The issues of earning management has received attention from practitioners and academicians since the last couple of decades in banking sector. It is evident that bank managers practice the discretion in estimating loan/finance loss provisions for various motives such as reducing earnings variability (Agarwal, Chomsisengphet, Liu & Rhee, 2007; Kanagaretnam, 2004). Majority of the studies have been focusing on conventional banks, and only a few studies have focussed on Islamic banks, for instance, Zoubi and Al-Khazali (2007) and Othman and Mersni (2014). The significance of examining the issues in the context of Islamic banks stems from the fact that Islamic banks should not manage their earnings the way their conventional banks do. This is because the underlying theoretical basis of Islamic banks are based on Shariah principles which is different from conventional banks.

The paper investigates whether there is a significance difference between the practices of discretionary loan/finance loss provisions between Islamic and conventional banks. Same time, the paper tests whether the efficiency may influence the behaviour of discretionary loans/finance loss provisions, taken into consideration other micro and macro variables. The study utilizes panel data runs over 1996-2011 with unbalanced observations for 16 banks, of which 4 Islamic banks. In order to achieve research objectives, the two-stage approach is adopted to examine the factors that may influence the behaviour of discretionary loan/finance loss provisions with specific emphasize on the efficiency. Furthermore, efficiency scores are estimated using Data Envelopment Windows Analysis. The findings of the research show that Islamic banks employ the discretionary loans/finance loss provisions to manage their earnings. However, the magnitude of discretion of accruals is significantly lower than conventional banks with exception for foreign banks which have reported lower discretionary loans/finance loss provisions than Islamic banks. Moreover, the analysis showed that efficiency affects the overall discretionary loans/finance loss provision positively, although this impact is shaped differently for Islamic and conventional banks.