Some investors strive for capital appreciation while others may follow capital preservation strategies in terms of investment. In relation to that, Islamic finance receives a lot of attention from institutional investors and asset managers in the search for higher returns, lower correlation and growth potentiality. Therefore, it would be meaningful to investigate whether sukuk can offer any advantage in terms of global diversification. In such context, we have examined the volatilities and correlations of bond indices of emerging counties such as South Korea, Singapore, China, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia with Thomson Reuters BPA Malaysia Sukuk Index by applying wavelet coherence and Multivariate GARCH analyses. The data covers the period January 2010 to December 2015. We conclude that the sukuk market offers effective portfolio diversification opportunities for fixed income investors of the mentioned sample countries. Global and regional investors can avail the benefits of portfolio diversification through investment in sukuk markets but portfolio diversification is not feasible domestically. As a practical implication to the finance industry, the outcome of this research provides a framework for investigating sukuk market integration of several emerging bond markets which serve as an important platform for conducting further research.

The exercise of modelling the risk and volatility of corporate bonds is undertaken through credit spreads analysis, a practice normally used in bond pricing and risk management. Despite the rapid growth of the Malaysian bond market, very few studies on the behaviour of credit spreads, and whether its volatility is influenced by external shocks have been conducted. This paper aims to unveil the trends and behaviour of credit spreads during the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. It examines the credit spreads of the Malaysian bond market by modelling the conditional variance and asymmetric response to past shocks of the long and short term investment and non-investment grade papers. A generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) is applied to 10 different ratings and maturity over the period ranging from 1 August 2005 to 31 December 2011. More specifically, modelling the asymmetry via the threshold GARCH (TARCH) and exponential GARCH (EGARCH) models meets the aim of this paper which examines the asymmetric response to past shocks of the Malaysian bond market during the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. The empirical analysis of this paper provides evidence of strong time-varying conditional variance of the Malaysian bond credit spreads with the expectation of future rate being the main determinant for credit spreads. Additionally, the evidence also indicates that past news or shocks as well as forecast variance are important in explaining the volatility of the spreads. The insignificant TARCH and EGARCH coefficients, nonetheless, indicate that there is no evidence of asymmetric response to past shocks in the volatility of bond spreads.

Purpose This paper aims to critically evaluate whether the policies of green banking set by Bangladesh Bank are Shariah compliant; according to the main sources of the Shariah Quran and Sunnah. Design/methodology/approach Green policy and guidelines have been divided into different categories such as environment protection, conservation of resources, risk management, educating people about green financing, transparency and disclosure and investing in green projects according to the common measures as stated in three different phases of the policy and guidelines. Subsequently, these major aspects of the green policy and guidelines are linked to the main references of the Shariah, i.e. the holy Quran and Sunnah of Prophet [peace be upon him (pbuh)]. Findings Various verses of the holy Quran and teachings of Prophet (pbuh) related to the major categories of Green policy and guidelines are being presented to show the compliance with Shariah. Practical implications The Green policy and guidelines are very much in-line with Shariah. Though all types of banks in Bangladesh are bound to implement the green banking policy, however, Shariah compliance of green banking policy will be encouraging for all Islamic Banks of Bangladesh for their further and profounder involvement in it. Social implications As green policies are found to be Shariah complaint, the Islamic banks are expected to contribute more to the sustainable economic growth of the country by successfully implementing the green financing policies compare to their conventional counterpart. Originality/value Verses of holy Quran and authentic Hadiths related to environmental sustainability concept show that Islam is a green religion as well as green banking policy is Islamic.

This study explores the influencing factors of the Islamic bond (sukuk) spreads, by employing the generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) method. Apart from the general GARCH (1,1) model, a higher order of lags for both ARCH and GARCH terms are also considered which is applied onto both the investment and non-investment grade sukuk. This study is among the first few to document the empirical evidence on sukuk spreads and its volatility which is expected to further enrich the empirical literature of the financial markets especially in the Islamic finance. This is in line with the pressing demand for more in-depth information on various dimensions of the sukuk market given the importance of the sukuk in the global capital market. This study contributes significantly to the benefit of the investors, portfolio managers as well as regulators to better understand the underlying factors influencing the pricing and risk management of sukuk instruments. In addition, the assessment on the impact of the recent global financial crisis allows for a thorough understanding on the behavior of sukuk spreads so as to pre-empt the impact of future financial shocks to the sukuk market.

Development of the global sukuk market has been pioneered by Malaysia with the launch of the first sovereign 5-year global sukuk of US$600 million in 2002. Since then, the sovereign sukuk market has developed rapidly, with sovereign sukuk being issued by the Governments of Turkey, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Indonesia to name a few. In view that sovereign securities are not totally free from default, there is also a great deal of concern associated with them as some of the issuing countries have experienced major debt servicing problems in the past such as the Greek debt crisis. As such, it is essential to analyze whether the sovereign sukuk yields do reflect the macroeconomic fundamentals of the issuing country. Based on the analysis of five countries in Asia and the Middle East, this study employs panel data from 2006 to 2013 and shows that only the inflation rate is able to explain the movement of sovereign sukuk yields. The insignificance of other macroeconomic variables such as GDP growth and money supply indicate that tagging the economic growth of the issuing country onto the pricing of sovereign sukuk yields may not be feasible at this juncture. Hence, it is concluded that in order to develop a standalone pricing mechanism different from the one used by the conventional bond market, more efforts are needed so that the sukuk market will expand with even more market player participation to create the liquidity needed for it to develop its own pricing mechanism.

Islamic structured product is a shariah-compliant asset class that is considered as a recent innovation in the financial market. In view of the increasing presence of Islamic finance in the global financial scenario, research on Islamic structured product has captured substantial interests among the investment community searching for new alternatives, particularly during uncertain market conditions. This study aims to serve as one of the pioneering empirical references for investors to evaluate Islamic structured investments, and for the regulators to strengthen the regulatory framework for such products in order to continuously protect investors interests and provide a conducive environment for further growth of the industry

Crowdfunding has become one of the preferred mechanisms to raise funds by startups and small entrepreneurs. As such, this paper aims to develop an appropriate framework for Shari'ah-compliant equity-based crowdfunding (SEC) for entrepreneurship development in Malaysia.

Understanding the co-movement among asset returns is a critical issue in finance, as investors can minimize risk through diversification. International investors seek alternative asset classes to diversify their portfolio. Therefore, it would be meaningful to investigate whether sukuk (Islamic bond) offer any advantages in terms of global diversification. In this context, we examined the volatilities and correlations of sovereign bond indexes in developed countries, such as the US, Canada, Germany, the UK, Australia, and Japan, and the Thomson Reuters BPA Malaysia Sukuk Index, using wavelet coherence and multivariate-GARCH analyses. The data cover the period January 2010-December 2015. The results of the study significantly highlight that wavelet coherence illustrates lower co-movement between returns on developed market bond index (the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Japan) with returns on the Malaysian sukuk index during the sample period. Moreover, the Malaysian sukuk market has negative unconditional correlation with the US and Canadian bond markets, which is a good sign of diversification benefits. This study reveals attractive opportunities in terms of diversification benefits, with credit quality and sharia-compliant financial sector exposure for investors who want to invest in fixed-income securities.

The sources of collagens and gelatins are recently being questioned because it sourced from porcine or non-halal slaughtered animals. There are also concerns regarding the transfer of diseases from animal sources of collagen to human users. This study aims to propose an alternative source of collagen using recombinant collagen-like protein (halal-based) and to analyze factors contribute to the probability of using this alternative source of collagen among consumers in Malaysia.

Financing-to-value (FTV) policy is a macroprudential policy currently used by the central banks to maintain the stability of financial systems and prevent systemic risks. In Indonesia this is particularly the case in relation to financing of the property sector by Islamic financial institutions. This paper aims to analyse the impact of FTV policy on the residential property price index (RPPI) in Indonesia using a panel data analysis method. Indonesia is chosen in this study as it is one of the countries implementing FTV policy in its Islamic banking system. There are three important findings to be drawn from the study. First, FTV policy ratios significantly affect RPPI.