This paper discusses the challenges in measuring the gaps and developing human capital to cater for the booming of Islamic financial services industry. While the need for highly trained manpower in the Islamic financial services industry is well-acknowledged, the root of the problem is primarily due to skills mismatch within the Islamic finance industry. This paper proposes a holistic approach to human capital development as the fundamental solution to the skills mismatch within the financial services industry, Islamic and conventional alike. The significant contribution of this paper lies in the competency model which is universal in nature. Programmes run by institutions such as INCEIF, IIUM, IIU Islamabad, IRTI are complementing each other in producing well-balanced and competent manpower for the Islamic financial services industry. Strong government support, effective regulatory agencies, good corporate governance are among the necessary prerequisites. The marriage between the industry and the academia should take the leadership role. We have at the end of the paper proposed a practical action plan. We conclude with a strong call for immediate action to leverage our richly endowed resources so that the Islamic financial services industry could once again lead the world and not remain as a follower.

The paper "A proposed framework for human capital development in the Islamic financial services industry" presented at Knowledge Economy and Management Congress, Istanbul, Turkey.

Efficiency of financial institution has become an important part of insurance literature. This study aims to evaluate the performance in term of cost efficiency for takaful and insurance firms in Malaysia. A sample of 18 firms consisting of 7 takaful operators and 11 conventional insurers are chosen from the period 2004 to 2009. The cost efficiency score for each firm are obtained using input oriented DEA model. A Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney test are employed to examine any significant difference in cost efficiency between Takaful industry and insurance industry. The main findings indicate a significant difference in cost efficiency between takaful and insurance industries. The average cost efficiency for takaful industry is 49.20% which implies they could reduce the cost of production by 50% without affecting the level of output. A lower market share exist in takaful industry has resulted to cost inefficiency. Essentially, this study has supported the market power theory.

In view of the heightened interest in Islamic Finance (IF) of some of the countries in the Middle East, in particular Morocco, which is currently initiating the promulgation of new laws on IF, it is thought to be timely to present in this paper the model of Cooperative Finance (CF) based on the system of mutual investment that is in line with Shariah. It is hoped that this model can be considered for integration within the new Moroccan legal framework. This approach provides alternatives to banking credit or financing that are in strict compliance with the legal Islamic Finance principles. Moreover it encourages solidarity within civil society or between groups of people demonstrating generosity because of the employment of the philosophy that is essentially based on cooperative principle. Of course, implementing economic structures to embrace the efforts of people with Islamic ethics and sensitivity to finance goods and services based on the cooperative spirit is a real challenge in IF. However, models relying on CF solutions have been implemented, in small scales, for nearly 25 years worldwide (Ansar-UK, Lariba-USA, Qurtuba Canada, etc.). It would make sense to integrate and develop such solutions in a significant industrial scale in Morocco. The purpose of this paper is to articulate the experience of ANSAR-UK as one of intermediate or transient solution before the implementation of monetary policy along the principles of Islamic finance. Specifically, we will present two types of financial products used by AFG structure: (i) Interest free credit facility (Qard Hasan) and (ii) Mutual housing finance model which can be studied for implementation in Morocco. The challenge is to bring out the principles of mutual aid and solidarity which lies at the heart of the IF system that meets with the requirements of the existing Moroccan legal and legislative system. Like ANSAR-UK, we hope this model can be extended to other products such as financing educational products, SMEs, SMIs, business services, etc. based on ethical principles and sharing of profits and losses at a certain level of risk.

The recent surge in demand for Shariah compliant instruments alongside the launch of Dow Jones City group Sukuk Index in 2006 has further catalyzed the increase in the number of issuance of global Islamic Sukuk. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar have become major issuers of global Sukuk which are highly demanded by investors. The normal rationale given behind such behavior might be the religious commitments to involve in riba free investments. However, it is worth testing that is it only religious commitments that are driving the demand or there may be some other factors contributing to this surge. Realizing that the majority of global Sukuk issuance is from the oil exporter countries, one such factor could be the price of crude oil. The relationship between crude oil prices and global Sukuk Index is not much covered in the literature as the facility has just started gaining attention in global capital markets. Insufficient data and the lack of reliable benchmarks for global Islamic Sukuk performances add further to the difficulties. While being impaired by such limits, this study will attempt to find out the possibility of any impact of oil prices on the global Sukuk returns and hence their issuance. The aims are achieved using advanced wavelet techniques. Our results, based on discrete wavelet, showed that there turned out to be noticeable correlation between the heave in global Sukuk issuance and the crude oil prices on more times than not.

This study attempts to measure the relative efficiency of the takaful industry and the conventional insurance industry in Malaysia. A sample of 18 firms consisting of 7 takaful operators and 11 insurance firms is examined over the period 2004 to 2009. The study employs Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the technical, cost and profit efficiencies for the takaful and insurance industry ...

The microfinance industry can reach the poor in large scale and yet attain profitability. To maintain these two objectives which is known as double bottom line, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have to find the right balance between financial sustainability and social performance. However, there have been considerable debates on whether the goals of the double bottom line have been compromised. It is argued that to attain profitability, MFIs have allegedly shifted away from its mandate of serving the poorest borrowers in pursuit of financial sustainability. This phenomenon is described as "mission drift" ...

Islam has encouraged the early Muslims to spend out of whatever they have for charity. When the verse 92 of Surah Ali Imran was revealed, there was not a single Muslim who did not part with whatever they have so as to belong to the category of "birr" or good. The fact that all wealth belongs to Allah means that whatever we give away in His cause is nothing compared to what He has given us. The most important implication is that waqf allows accumulation of capital infinitely as long as more and more capital are being made waqf.

Finance used to be widely treated as part of economics which also encompasses personal, public and corporate finance. It is also considered as the science of fund management, spending, saving and budgeting. Hence it includes stocks, capital and money markets, unit trusts, asset management, etc. However, Islamic finance as is widely used today encompasses all of the above plus banking, takaful, wealth planning, capital and money markets and all activities related to them as well.

This research provides insights into the factors influencing takaful penetration rate of the Malaysian takaful industry from the period 1985-2008. The methodology employed consist of both the quantitative and qualitative approaches. Three research objectives have been identified. First is to investigate the factors thats influence the market penetration from the perspective of takaful participants. Second is to find the obstacles that prevent non-takaful participants from participating in the takaful industry. Third is to gain further insight from the experience of the senior managers of Takaful operators ...

This study identifies the internal and external factors affecting the investment performance, profitability and wakalah fees of general takaful companies operating in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, UAE, Qatar and Pakistan using an unbalanced panel data set of consisting of 53 companies. Two investment performance measures, namely net investment income and investment yield, are utilized to capture different aspects of the takaful investment operations. Profitability is measured by the profit before tax of takaful companies.

This book presents successful case studies in Muslim and Muslim minority countries that have revolutionized the redevelopment of idle waqf properties into productive land trusts. The revival of this institution over the last two decades shows the growing optimism in galvanizing the socioeconomic role of waqf by adopting its flexible shariah measures. Innovative ways of financing redevelopment allow Muslims to extend these roles to include new beneficiaries. New uses for these properties include providing services to the community, opening jobs for the majority of people, funding small entrepreneurs, educating the masses, providing health care, and sheltering the poor and needy.

Emerges out of rising demand for long term capital. Long term capital are for large and long-term investments, development projects, and starting and expanding businesses. Islamic capital market (ICM) is also crucial in mitigating risks associated with long term financing, asset & liability mismatch of financial institutions. The common products are: Shariah-compliant stocks, sukuks, Islamic funds, and private equities.

We made the first estimate of the proportion of fund alpha statistically attributable to luck rather than skill for a sample of Malaysian Islamic equity funds. Broadly, the funds do not outperform market benchmarks. In the limited instances where performance is superior, based on a contemporary methodology, as much as 47% of the observed positive fund alpha is statistically attributable to luck. Thus, at 5% significance level, we find only 1.95% of our funds to be genuinely skilled. Our findings raise questions regarding the equitability of these funds levying fixed fees, making a case for potential innovation in fund remuneration structure.

The failure of interest based programmes, such as micro-finance and anti-poverty programmes, in assisting the destitute, eradicating poverty and reducing income inequality encouraged the authors to study in depth the alternative financial institutions to interest/riba that can solve such problems rather than harming individuals, communities, societies and countries. This raises the question of whether the different Islamic financial institutions can eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and provide microfinance with zero-interest. The answer to this will be presented throughout this paper.

All human beings in this world deserve a better physical and social well-being particularly the quality of life. By having proper well-being and quality of life, the advancement of individual's physical and mental aspect can be assured. This balanced individual will form a stable family unit and later on contribute to a dynamic community in a bigger social entity. However, in order to enhance both physical well-being (PWB) and social well-being (SWB) as well as to attain a good quality of life (QoL), a social disease called poverty must be eliminated. In Indonesia, Islamic Financial Cooperative which is known as Baitul Maal wat Tamwil (BMT) has been influential in enhancing the participants' socio-economic status by providing small scale financial services and social development programs to the poor and low income households. Moreover, this paper purports to show that Islamic Microfinance Institution (IsMFIs) particularly BMT has contributed towards improving the participants' well-being and quality of life. As such, it becomes interesting to firstly find out whether the participants have significantly increased their physical and social well-being after joining BMT for several years. Secondly, having joined BMT, are there any improvement with their quality of life (measured by satisfaction with life).

The paper "The importance of financial inclusion vis-a-vis poverty alleviation and their correlation with reference to SDGs" presented by Prof. Datuk Dr. Syed Othman Alhabshi at Jakarta International Convention Center, Jakarta, Indonesia.

The hard core poor are neither bankable nor covered against risks. Whilst micro-finance seems to solve financial inclusion for this group to some extent, albeit at very high costs, very little have been done to provide sufficient cover against risks of all sorts for this group. Some attempts at developing micro-takaful are actually in the pipeline, however, very little concrete and practical solutions have emerged so far. It is of course well-known that Islamic Social Financial Institutions (ISFI), namely zakah, waqf, infaq and qard-hassan are meant to directly benefit the less fortunate in society, but little has been done to ensure that they directly benefit from these institutions. The main objective of this paper is to show how the ISFI can be synergised to overcome this problem. The paper is also intended to show how the ISFI can be integrated within a Micro-Finance Model for alleviating poverty, assisting in providing the basic needs for the hard core poor such as food, shelter, education and health care. Research Methodology - this paper uses both primary and secondary sources. Data collected from primary sources include text from the Quran and from the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh), while data collected from secondary sources includes books, articles, journals, annual reports, and websites. Expected findings - Drawing lessons from some existing successful cases there, the expected findings for this paper is to draw the attention from policy marker, researchers to find ways and means how to integrate the ISFI into a viable Micro-Finance Model that will achieve such noble mission at the present time.

This paper argues that the goal of poverty alleviation and a decent standard of living is not attainable in Muslim communities unless the economic and social services of the Islamic philanthropic institutes are integrated and a full-fledged collaboration would be resumed among the managing boards. The first part of the paper will examine why Muslims participate in altruistic giving and what are the alternative forms of contributions that are provided by Shariah of Islam. The second part will review the potential and actual contributions of the said Islamic benevolent giving for poverty eradication and well-being of low and vulnerable income families. The third and concluding part will discuss the conditions, methods and mechanism for integration and coordination among Islamic philanthropic institutes for provision of affordable housing.

The main objective of this paper is to draw the attention to the four remarkable financial institutions which are meant to eradicate poverty, reduces inequalities and narrowing down the gap between the rich and the poor in ethical and just a way. These financial institutions are the zakah, waqf, qard-hassan and interest-free financial institutions.

The slides "The Islamic economic challenge" presented by presented by Prof. Datuk Dr. Syed Othman Alhabshi at the International Seminar of Managing Global Economy.