Literature Survey on Islamic Microfinance

Islamic microfinance can be seen as an emerging industry in some Muslim countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and MENA regions. It acts as a movement to eradicate poverty in the society and to help improve the social standard of the poor people. The concept of Islamic microfinance is similar to those implemented in conventional microfinance except for it adheres to several points and concepts which in line with the Shariah rulings. As a growing industry, Islamic microfinance does facing several challenges such as limited outreach in the market, lack of expertise in the industry, governance and management problems, and many more. Hence, this paper will discuss further the issues and challenges faced by Islamic microfinance institutions in selected Muslim countries. Plus, some suggestions are given at the end of this paper to solve these issues.

The Impact of Credit Diversification on Credit Risk and Performance of Indonesian Banks

This study aims to identify the effect of credit diversification in the economic sector on credit risk and performance of commercial banks in Indonesia. Multiple linear regression is used to determine the effect of credit diversification on credit risk and banking performance. The data used in this study is the aggregated financial statements of commercial banks inIndonesia during the 2015-2018. The results indicate that credit diversification based on the economic sector has a significant effect on increasing the profitability of commercial banks in Indonesia. The credit diversification based on the economic sector also has a significant effect in reducing credit risk. Two control variables, namely company size and banking liquidity have a significant negative effect on profitability respectively. In the case of credit risk, the company size hasapositive effect, while the banking liquidity has no effect. These findings support the traditional banking theory which states that banks that diversify their credit portfolios can reduce the credit risk and increase profitability.

Mediating Effect of Islamic Social Reporting on the Relationship between Good Corporate Governance and Company Value: The Case of the State-Owned Enterprises

The concept of Good Corporate Governance (GCG) is related to the disclosure of Islamic Social Reporting (ISR) which guarantees that the funds invested in the company are well managed and will provide adequate returns so that this can attract investors and indirectly can increase the company value. This research aims to analyze the indirect effect of GCG rating on company value through the disclosure of ISR and it also attempts to analyze the direct effect of GCG and ISR toward company value, and the effect of GCG towards ISR. This research used quantitative and descriptive approaches with secondary data. The state-owned enterprises in the manufacturing and mining sector listed in the Indonesian Sharia Stock Index (ISSI) were selected as the sample of the study. The method used in this study includes descriptive statistical analysis, partial least square, and mediation test. The result shows that GCG has a positive effect on company value and ISR disclosure, while ISR disclosure does not affect company value. However, GCG does not affect company value through ISR disclosure. This indicates that ISR disclosure has no mediation effect on the relationship between GCG and company value.

Human Prosperity Measurement within The Gloom of Maqasid Al-Shariah

This study is trying to interpret the theory of Maqasid Al-Shariah in wide context, which further based on the measurement of socio-economic prosperity; it takes into account the major drawbacks of the existing measurements. The proposed measurement is an integrated Maqasid Al-Shariah based composite index to measure socio-economic prosperity of economies in general and muslim countries in particular. The integrated Maqasid Al-Shariah based measurement does not isolate economic and social progress from the spiritual and biophysical variables that effect human prosperity. Specifically, in this paper, we will be looking at the theory of Maqasid Al-Shariah and socio-economic prosperity, in order to develop these constructs within the proposed composite index and the measurement variables, where each variable constructs under the Maqasid Al-Shariah. This study argues that the existing measurements of socio-economic progress are limited by number of measured variables and, therefore, do not portray the real socio-economic prosperity status.

Islamization of Monetary Policy of 27 OIC Muslim Countries in Asia: The Successes, The Barriers and The Future Directions

The Islamization of banking, monetary policy, and the financial system began in 1975 after the setup of the Islamic development bank (IDB). Firstly, this paper discusses a concise framework of Islamic monetary policy. Then it presents the success and obstacles of the Islamization process of the monetary policy among the 27 OIC member Muslim countries in Asia and provides future directions to enhance the Islamization process. This paper employed secondary data and used the three criteria to measure the Islamization process: 1) Islamization of commercial banking; 2) making Islamic banking guidelines & regulations; 3) innovation and starting the Islamic monetary policy instruments. This paper finds that more than 154 Islamic commercial banks are operating under the Conventional monetary policy in 23 countries with very few Islamic monetary tools. On the contrary, Iran follows full-pledged Islamic monetary policy with 30 Islamic commercial banks. More precisely, in these countries, only 17% of total banks are Islamic bank, whereas 83% are still interest-based banks. Regrettably, two countries (Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) do not have any tools of Islamic monetary policy. This paper also finds that though 64% of Islamic banks were established during 1970-2000 periods in 27 countries, only 25% of countries prepared Islamic banking regulation at this period. On the other hand, 75% of Islamic banking regulations were made during 2000-2015 periods. Most common Islamic monetary instruments are project-based Sukuk, project-based debt instruments, etc. Finally, this paper recommends six steps to enhance the Islamization process.

The Effects of Macroeconomic and Bank Specific Factors on Nonperforming Financing in Sharia Commercial Bank in Indonesia

Financing risk is often associated with the risk of default. This risk refers to the potential losses faced by the bank when financing provided to debtors is stuck. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of macroeconomic and bank specific factors on nonperforming financing in sharia commercial bank in Indonesia. The macroeconomic factors included; inflation and Bank Indonesia Certificates Sharia (SBIS). The Bank specific factors included; Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Return on Assets (ROA), Operations Expenses to Operations Income (BOPO), and Financing to Deposit Ratio (FDR). The period covered under this study was January 2011 to December 2017. Data was collected from Bank Indonesia website and Indonesia Banking Statistics. Contrary to other studies, the inflation and SBIS have not been found statistically significant with nonperforming financing. The results also show that NPF can be explained mainly by Bank specific factors. CAR, ROA, and FDR have a negative effect on NPF while BOPO has a positive effect on NPF.

Factors Affecting Capital Structure of Conventional and Islamic Banks: Evidence from MENA Region

This study aim is to investigate and compare the factors affecting conventional and Islamic bank’s capital structure choice as well as their financial characteristics. According to the best of my knowledge, this is the first paper that mainly concentrated in comparing the determinants of capital structure of conventional and Islamic banks using a cross-country data and for a long period of time (20 years). The study revealed several findings. Firstly, descriptive statistics (equality of means test) showed that conventional banks more leveraged and liquid than Islamic banks. In contrast, Islamic banks are larger and more profitable (ROA) than conventional banks. The results also indicated that Islamic banks are not riskier than conventional banks. Secondly, the regression results showed that all variables, except tax-shield, had the same impact on both banking types capital structure. It been found that profitability, tangibility, business risk and age correlated negatively and significantly with capital structure. In the other direction, size, liquidity and inflation had significant and positive relation with capital structure. Vis-à-vis tax-shield, this variable had a weak impact (positive) on Islamic bank’s capital structure but had no effect on conventional banks and this attributed to Islamic banks sample.

The Measurement of Customer Satisfaction Index with Method of Importance-Performance and Gap Analysis

Customer satisfaction was the most talked topics in the service industry. Customer satisfaction is the main priority of the success of management of banking. Banking was always innovating and training human resources in order to reduce the needs of customers. Researchers analyze whether the Bank's service is in compliance with the hopes of the customer. Research conducted at the Bank Syariah Mandiri Samarinda. This research utilized 450 respondents as samples and a Cartesian diagram as performance level. The result obtained (1) the existence of a cash machine were the important factors but management had not been fullest implement according to the wishes of the customer, (2) generally, the client was very satisfied over Bank Syariah Mandiri services, the average customer satisfaction above BSM performance with 97.36%.

Assessing Financial Risk and Regional Macroeconomic Influence to Islamic Rural Bank Performance

Islamic Rural Bank must deal with internal and external risks which will affect to the performance of the bank. This paper aims to assess the internal and external risks that influence to the bank performance. By adopting panel data analysis, the paper analyzes 21 biggest Islamic rural bank which as a representative of 21 provinces around Indonesia during 2013-2017 which result 420 observation period. Furthermore, Return on Asset (ROA) are utilized as dependent variable which represents Islamic rural bank’s performance. As independent variables, Non-Performing Financing (NPF) and Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) are applied as internal risk in Islamic rural bank. To analyze external risk, regional macroeconomic factors, Regional Economic Growth (REG) and Regional Inflation (RInf) are employed then Total Asset of Islamic rural bank (Size) is also used as complementary variable. Based on the analysis, this study finds that SRB has robust risk management through internal and external risk. However, REG has significant ROA that explains the performance of Islamic rural bank will depend on regional economic growth in each province.

Investment-Linked Takaful Plan Patronage: Evidence from Malaysia

Investment-linked Takaful is a recent innovation introduced in Malaysia. This study focuses on Investment-linked takaful plan selection in Malaysia. We have used a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 143 respondents from the Klang Valley area. Data collected through the survey was analyzed through descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis. Results indicate that fee payment and benefits play a significant role in Takaful operator selection while coverage and benefits affect the investment-linked product selection in Malaysia. This study is unique as it provides empirical evidence on the investment-linked takaful investment which is limited in supply. Results provided by this study can be useful for takaful operators in designing the most appropriate investment-linked product for attracting customers.