This research will look at the reasons for the civil courts being the preferred mode of dispute resolution for Islamic finance disputes in Malaysia and how arbitration, based on the shari'ah can play an active role to resolve disputes in Islamic finance cases. Various features of arbitration in general and Islamic arbitration in particular will be looked into, followed by a study of the arbitration rules under two arbitration centres to find the common themes of these centres and the differences in their approach, if any ...

This research aims to deal with the law of evidence invoked in Islamic banking cases reported in Malaysia from 1983 to 2015 and determine whether the invoked provisions of the statute in the case law have any conflicts with Islamic law that are threatening the development of Islamic banking in Malaysia. The methodology used in this research is assessing the implication by studying the provisions of the law of evidence that has been invoked in the reported case law. It is evident from this research that following are the evident conflicts found in the Evidence Act 1950. In this arena, the following changes are significant for sustaining Islamic banking in Malaysia. Expert opinion under Section 45 of the Evidence Act 1950 should be amended such that in Islamic banking, under this Act, expert opinion can be sought by the court. The rule and exceptions of parol evidence in Sections 91 and 92 of the Evidence Act 1950 need to be amended such that in Islamic banking matters, anything that is contrary to Shariah is mentioned in the contract; this amendment will be an exception to the parol evidence rule on the grounds that the written Islamic contract can be amended or set aside depending on the circumstances of the case.

Islamic banking and Finance (IBF) provides products and services guided by the Shariah. Therefore, they are supposed to be different from their conventional counterparts. Islamic deposit rates should be different from conventional deposit rates. Islamic banking profit rates are supposedly less risky due to risksharing attribute embedded in their structure as compared to the conventional banking interest rates on similar-risk investment products. This paper addresses this concern by examining the differences in the monthly fixed deposit rates of conventional and investment deposit rates of Islamic banks and finance companies in Malaysia for the period from January 1994 to December 2012 and determines the causality relationship between profit rates and interest rates on these investments. The findings suggest that profit rates of Islamic banks are significantly linked with interest rates of conventional banks.

For the first time, this study investigates whether, in mimicking conventional banks, Islamic banks have become less stable than their theoretical equivalent: cooperative banks in Europe. Theoretically, the prohibition of interest should have pushed Islamic banks towards mutuality and profit-sharing, which have been argued as stabilising. In practice, however, banks are pushed for growth under a debt-driven commercial banking model, which is not only antithetical to the Shariah but is also destabilising. This may explain why empirical findings are still divergent in Islamic banking stability studies. Our study employs the generalised method of moments (GMM) system to compare the stability of 37 Islamic banks against 1,536 cooperative banks in Europe during the 2008 crisis and post-non-crisis years. Interestingly, we found consistent and significant evidence that Islamic banks are less stable than cooperative banks in both macroeconomic conditions. This has significant policy implications, the most important of which is to steer reform efforts away from refurbishing Islamic commercial banks and towards building an entirely new Islamic cooperative bank, based on the model in Europe.

The paper assesses the risk implications of rapid Islamic financing growth after the Global Financial crisis and whether financing - risk relations are more reflective of large Islamic banks. Employing a panel regression methodology and a sample of 72 Islamic banks from 14 countries over the period 2010-2019, our analysis indicates that Islamic financing growth does lead to credit risk deterioration up to two years ahead. We note further that Islamic banks are "too small to succeed" in that the risk effect of financing growth is more apparent for small Islamic banks. But, once an Islamic bank reaches a certain size threshold, it demonstrates ability to manage and mitigate credit risk arising from its financing activities. Based on these results, we conclude that Islamic banks need to be bigger.

According to a press release from the Bank of Maldives (BML) dated the 22nd January 2025, the institution proudly marks a decade of pioneering Islamic banking services in the Maldives, reflecting the nation's increasing demand for Shariah compliant financial solutions. Since launching its Islamic banking division, BML Islamic, the bank has been steadfast in providing fully Shariah compliant banking solutions with complete segregation of funds, aligning with international standards. In line with its vision to prioritize Islamic finance, three branches in Eydhafushi, Mahibadhoo and Gan have been rebranded exclusively as BML Islamic branches, further embedding the 'Islamic Finance First' philosophy in its operations. Commenting on this milestone, Mohamed Shareef, CEO and managing director of BML, stated: "Celebrating 10 years of BML Islamic is a proud moment for Bank of Maldives. As the largest Islamic bank in the Maldives, we offer a comprehensive suite of products including accounts, cards and financing. BML Islamic was the first to introduce innovative services such as Islamic overdraft financing, cash financing, hybrid home financing, Islamic debit cards and the Maldives' only Shariah compliant credit card. These branch updates underline our commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our customers."

The present paper comparatively evaluates the credit channel of monetary transmission process of Islamic banks and conventional banks by focusing on their lending/financing behaviour in responses to monetary policy shocks as well as other shocks. Adopting structural vector autoregression (SVAR) specification, we validate the significant responses of both conventional bank credit and Islamic bank financing to monetary policy shocks. However, the dynamic behaviour of Islamic banks following monetary policy shocks as well as other shocks tends to be different. Our analysis indicates that the Islamic bank financing tends to respond immediately while the conventional bank credit exhibits delayed responses to interest rate hikes. These results are generally robust to alternative specifications of the SVAR.

This study aims to scrutinize the modus operandi of global financial frauds in Islamic financial institutions and assesses whether those frauds can be prevented using high standards of Shariah governance. A qualitative research methodology is deployed to conduct this study by analyzing and scrutinizing academic journals, reports, regulatory guidelines and articles The findings in this study show that the modus operandi ranges from bribery, forged documents, unlawful profiteering, credit limit allowance ignorance, Ponzi scheme, culprit collaboration from inside and outside the banks. This paper also argues that the centralized and high-standard Shariah governance framework better prevents fraud by providing better Shariah supervision and risk management measures. The observations in this study are limited to financial fraud at Islamic financial institutions that happened in the 21st century with more than $100m in financial loss or penalty. This study may contribute significantly by providing insight for regulators to strengthen the Shariah governance framework in their respective countries. It also benefits Islamic financial institutions by enhancing their capacity to anticipate future financial fraud.

Capital adequacy plays an important role in determining banking activities. A bank must hold a minimum level of capital to ensure sufficient funds to buffer against unexpected losses or adverse shocks. This study analyzes and compares Islamic and conventional banks in 14 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) countries from 1999 to 2009. The empirical evidence suggests that capital requirements have a significant impact on the deposit and lending behaviors of the 52 Islamic banks (IBs) and 186 conventional banks (CBs) in the sample. There is a strong positive relationship between capital requirements and deposit and loan growth for both IBs and CBs

Numerous attempts have been made to study the impact of competition on banking-stability before and after the recent global financial crisis. In the rich theoretical and empirical literature on the topic, two contradictory views have surfaced, i.e. the competition-fragility view and the competition-stability view. This thesis provides empirical evidence of a nonlinear relationship between competition and stability that explains, at least partially, the conflicting results of previous theoretical and empirical studies. Furthermore, while the existing literature focuses on conventional banking, this thesis investigates both Islamic and conventional banks in dual banking systems and explores whether or not bank types affect the competition-stability relationship. Using GMM technique on panel data covering the dual-banking countries that have significant share of Islamic banking for the period from 2004 until 2014, this thesis finds that the relationship between market power and stability is nonlinear for both Islamic and conventional banks, albeit with a marginal difference between them. The impact of market power is initially positive "supporting the charter value theory," but it turns to be negative as soon as banks' market power exceeds a certain limit, probably because the negative impact of the "too-important-to-fail" moral hazard overcomes the initial positive impact.

This article investigates the dynamic relationship among competition, diversification and bank performance using data for 18 countries with a dual banking system over the period 2000 to 2016. Analyses using panel vector autoregression (P.V.A.R.) model, impulse response function (I.R.F.) and variance decomposition (V.D.C.) methods confirm that market power increases the profitability and the stability of banks the dual banking system while revenue diversification reduces them. Market power increases revenue diversification of banks. Segregating the sample of banks into emerging and developing countries, we find that positive impact of market power on profitability is stronger for emerging countries. Even though we find that revenue diversification has a more damaging effect on the profitability of banks in the developing countries, it only dampens the stability of banks in emerging countries. In addition, we find that asset diversification dampens the stability of banks. However, it has a more positive impact on the profitability of banks in emerging economies.

We examine the impact of competition and portfolio diversification on banking stability for conventional and Islamic banks in Indonesia. We find that the Islamic banking sector is less stable, when compared to the conventional banking sector. Competition in the banking sector reduces stability, while diversification enhances it. We find that competition negatively impacts the Islamic banks, but diversification has no impact on these banks. An interesting finding is that competition and diversification complement each other in enhancing the stability of the Indonesian banking sector. These findings carry an important policy implication for the banking sector of Indonesia.

Islamic banks (“IB”) are predominant institutions of Islamic Finance (“IF”) worldwide. Consumers are key stakeholders in IBs. The central objective of this research is to study consumer financial protection (“CFP”) in IBs. The presence of conduct risk (“CR”) in the form of reputational damage, monetary awards, costs and fines, emanating from grievances, claims and disputes between IBs and their consumers is indicated as resulting from laxity in CFP. As with conventional banks (“CB”), lax CFP in IBs results in CR due to various forms of misconduct, whether intentional, negligent or inadvertent. However, in IBs, lax CFP may also result in CR due to “tensions” in Shari'ah governance (“SG”) that may have nexus to CFP. That conundrum may lead to Shari'ah risk (“SR”) and Shari'ah non-compliance risk (“SNCR”). Statistical analysis and modeling of CFP key indicators is therefore instrumental in examining the relationships. Exploratory factor analysis (“EFA”), confirmatory factor analysis (“CFA”) and covariance-based structural equation modeling (“CB-SEM”) on consumer-facing survey instrument responses (key measurement CFP variables) was conducted. The resulting empirical evidence indicates that latent and key measurement CFP variables hypothesised by multinational banking institutions have a statistically significant impact on CFP in IBs. taxonomy of civil court rulings involving IBs and Shari'ah-compliant contracts for the period 2011-2018 using a qualitative legal document review methodology, limited in scope to those civil case rulings and decisions resulting in money awards, damages, asset impairment, costs and significant exposure, was conducted. A literature review of pre-2011 and post-2018 civil cases involving IBs and regulatory actions was also conducted, in search of indicia of CR. Recent Bank Negara Malaysia (“BNM”) enforcement actions involving CFP issues were reviewed and annotated. Islamic banking disputes lodged with the Ombudsman of Financial Services (“OFS”) and the related awards for the calendar years 2014-2018 were qualitatively reviewed in search of further indicia of CR in IBs. Results indicate that taken together, these civil court rulings, enforcement actions and alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) actions from OFS form compelling evidence of the persistent presence of CR in IBs. Moreover, EFA and CFA on consumer-facing survey instrument responses statistically buttress the conclusion that latent and key CR measurement variables trigger grievances, disputes and claims against IBs.

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.

This study extends the bank ownership database of Claessens and van Horen (2015) to investigate the role of state-owned and foreign banks in the development of private credit markets in countries with a dual banking system. The enhanced database contains state and foreign ownership information of 1,038 banks operating in 29 countries, categorised as either Islamic or non-Islamic. To begin, this study uses the database to identify the bank ownership patterns in the dual banking countries. The data reveals that the ownership structure of the Islamic banking industry changes in a different manner from that of their conventional counterpart. More specifically, it shows that, in line with financial liberalisation policies, the presence of state-owned and foreign conventional banks decreases and increases, respectively. On contrary, Islamic banks with both types of ownership become more prevalent over time. Further, the data is used to examine how state-owned and foreign bank presence affects private credit in the countries. To do so, this study employs a cross-country approach that regresses private credit to GDP ratios against the shares of total bank assets held by state-owned and foreign banks. In the regressions, the asset shares are measured both in total and by bank types (i.e., Islamic versus conventional banks). The regressions are run separately using data average over the full sample period (1995-2017), and over the three subsample periods that are divided into the pre-crisis (1995-2006), during-crisis (2007-2009), and post-crisis (2010-2017) periods. When measuring bank ownership shares in total, this study finds that the presence of state-owned banks is associated with less credit to the private sector in support of the political view. This negative relationship is, however, found to be insignificant during the crisis period. In terms of magnitude, the effect, when significant, is somewhat larger in the post-crisis period than in the pre-crisis and the full sample period. On the other hand, this study does not find significant evidence that the presence of foreign banks could adversely affect private credit markets either in the full sample period or in the subsample periods.

The rahn-based Islamic microcredit facility is currently popular among Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia, essentially because of its commercial features, which make it attractive and competitive with conventional pawnbroking. However, the substance of this product triggers some Shari`ah issues, which are mainly centred on the safekeeping fee the bank charges the customer under the principle of ijarah al-hifz (safekeeping fee) and wadi`ah yad al-damanah (guaranteed safe custody). This paper is primarily intended to examine the key Shari`ah issues associated with the structure that is widely accepted at present. It undertakes a case study of two selected Islamic banks that offer a rahn-based Islamic microcredit facility to their clients. The product manual of each bank has been examined to understand the structure flow of the product, payment of the safekeeping fee and other relevant operational aspects of the product. Interviews have also been conducted to gather data related to the operation of this product that was not available in the product manuals of the two selected Islamic banks. It is proposed that the alternative structure must comply with the Shari`ah and meets most of the distinctive commercial features of the rahn-based Islamic microcredit facility to maintain its commercial viability in the industry.

Bank financing is an important external source of financing for SMEs. However, banks often considered SMEs as riskier than large enterprises and therefore use various tools to mitigate their risks in SME lending / financing such as imposing collateral requirement, higher pricing and credit rationing. This may limit access to finance for the SMEs. By understanding SME default risk better, banks may reduce or eliminate the collateral requirement, lower the pricing or avoid credit rationing thus improving access to finance for the SMEs. Studies have considered various risk factors and their impact on default. However, none, to the best of my knowledge has considered religion as a risk factor. Religion has been shown to influence individual decision-making that affects economic outcomes. Thus, this thesis postulates that religion may have an effect on SME default risk too. The thesis examines religion from four perspectives; as a loan characteristics i.e. Islamic financing and conventional loan, as a firm characteristic i.e. Muslim and non-Muslim owned SME, as a brand and religiosity ...

Applying the General-to-Specific modelling on World Bank Enterprise Survey data for 266 economies, this paper models five performance indicators based on 80 potential factors derived from firm characteristics, finance, informality, infrastructure, innovation, technology, regulation, taxes, trade and workforce concerning small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We find that the factors vary regarding statistical significance and magnitude between small and medium enterprises. For example, the percent of firms using e-mail to interact with clients/suppliers has a positive effect on the annual employment growth of medium enterprises, but not the case of small enterprises. The proportion of investments financed by equity or stock sales has an adverse impact on small enterprises, while there is no such effect on medium enterprises. We find that more drivers explained the annual employment growth and the percent of firms buying fixed assets compared to capacity utilization, annual labor productivity growth, and real annual sales growth.

This study focuses on the possibility of applying salam wakalah, modified mudarabah and musharakah mutanaqisah as underlying concepts for SMEs financing in Malaysia. It is a known fact that SMEs are having difficulties in obtaining bank financing as compared to large and established corporations. Due to the financing bias, SMEs generally will not seek for bank financing. Although Islamic banks in Malaysia offer SME financing products, the majority is based on tawarruq which is a debt-based financing and for SMEs, debt financing is not their top preference as it will affect the financial leverage; over-reliance on tawarruq will cause contract concentration risks for banks as well. This paper proposes three models with profit and loss sharing feature which is believed to be a better option for both SMEs and Islamic banks. The processes and flows of the proposed models are discussed in this paper. Hypothetical examples are used to illustrate the payoffs of the models towards SMEs and Islamic bank, showcasing the benefits of adopting the models over tawarruq financing. The models address the unique financing needs of SMEs under different business stages: salam wakalah for short term working capital financing that is vital during introductory phase; modified mudarabah for specific projects that enhance the business productivity during the growth stage, and; musharakah mutanaqisah for purchase of equipment and machineries during business expansion. At the same time, this paper also discuss on the potential of adopting the models into Investement Account Platform (IAP) to have involvement from the investors while encouraging Islamic banks to provide more equity-based contracts for SMEs.

This paper extracts key variables from documented findings on bank intermediation margins of two types of banks in the Organisation of Islamic Countries. The intermediation margins used as the dependent variable are: net interest margins of conventional banks and the net profit margins of Islamic banks. To overcome the endogeneity issue of variables, an appropriate econometric procedure namely the dynamic Generalized Method of Moments is applied using data from 105 commercial banks over 14 years. The results are interesting: there is a significant difference in the margins across the two types of banks, 2.17% and 1.61% respectively. Capital adequacy, management quality, and diversification determinants significantly explain the margins of both types of banks. We also find evidence suggesting market quality matters. This is an expected result since both banks operate, despite their inherent institutional differences, in a competitive environment to meet the core demands for funds, which are the same, for traditional lending and borrowing activities. However, this also shows that both CBs and IBs in dual banking system are not significantly different from each other, despite the perception arising from minor institutional differences. These findings provide insights on the unique banking performance in dual banking systems.

The ability of banks in giving out loans and investments depends very much on their ability of attracting deposits. Unlike its conventional counterpart, Islamic principles forbid Islamic banks to take any interest-related income amid the fact that deposits are an important source of fund for its operational and financing. Consequently, the risk of deposit withdrawal by depositors is an important aspect that should be well managed in both conventional and Islamic banking system. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the effect of selected economic and bank specific variables on deposits placed at the Islamic and conventional banks ...