Chapter in Book

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused unprecedented upheavals to the global economy at a scale never seen before in the history of humankind. While governments around the world grappled for the right panacea to address the socio-economic disruptions faced by their nations, the pandemic uncovered new outlook and opportunities. This inevitably compelled the global economies to revisit and reshape their thinking, re-prioritize, re-plan and start implementing initiatives that are more sustainable, resilient, and social in nature. In this regard, banking system plays a vital role in strengthening and sustaining the economy of a country. In doing so, it must ensure that it facilities and supports the recovery measures as announced by its respective government for the survival of the nation particularly the bottom sector of the society during this challenging time.

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.

The rapid growth of Islamic finance, especially Islamic banking, and its perceived resiliency during the global financial crisis have been key features in recent Islamic finance literature. The Islamic banking business model has also started to attract empirical attention from economists as to whether it can instil the much needed stability into the financial system. While some studies have offered evidence that Islamic banks are relatively more stable and resilient than their conventional counterparts (Cihak and Hesse, 2010; Hasan and Dridi, 2010), there still remain several concerns over whether Islamic banks can play a distinct role in the stability of the financial system and can better allocate financial resources ...

The body of literature on Islamic banking has expanded significantly in the recent decades. A cursory overview of it paints a picture of an uncertain future for the industry. Admittedly, Islamic banking has experienced some success globally, with an annual double digit growth rate (an average of 15% to 20% annually) in the last decade. But to maintain the momentum, the industry has to improve on a number of pertinent aspects ...