Governance and Financial Reporting of Islamic Banks

While Islamic finance continues to evolve at a fast pace across the globe, the government of Mauritius is undertaking various initiatives to encourage and facilitate the conduct of Islamic banking activities in the country. Examples are the admission of the Bank of Mauritius as an associate member of the Islamic Financial Services Board in 2007, the enactment of the guidelines for Islamic banking in 2008, and the hosting of the 11th Islamic Financial Services Board Summit in 2014. Consequently, through these endeavors, several stakeholders offering Islamic finance products are expressing interest to set up their business infrastructures in Mauritius. Hence, this chapter discusses the main governance and financial reporting requirements of the offeror of Islamic banking products such that potential investors are acquainted with the legal and compliance needs of an Islamic bank operating in Mauritius.

Islamic Financial Inclusion

Financial Inclusion (FI), a global concern of this decade, has been accepted by development agencies, governments, and policymakers as one of the pre-eminent ways to eradicate worldwide poverty and income inequality. Consequently, authorities are looking for possible ways to include the unbanked in formal financial chain. Islamic finance, specifically Islamic banking, with its welfare-oriented principles and unique products, has been able to capture the attention of policy makers. Moreover, a major portion of the Muslim population still exclude themselves from the formal financial chain due to religious prohibition of interest-based transactions for whom Islamic finance is the only way to inclusion. Bangladesh, one of the major Muslim countries in the world, is still to bring one-fourth of its total population under formal financial chain. At this backdrop, this chapter examines the empirical contribution of Islamic banking sector in financial inclusion condition as well as development scenario of Bangladesh.

Participative Banking in Turkey

Islamic banks were established as private financial institutions in Turkey based on a law enacted in 1983. Private financial institutions succeeded to have equal rights with commercial banks subject to banking law in 2001. The name of private financial institutions was changed to participation banks in 2005 because of being insufficient in terms of Islamic banking transactions. This chapter includes a performance analysis of participation banks listed in Turkey by considering the efficiency and profitability ratios within the period of 2007-2016 using interval-valued pythagorean fuzzy AHP based fuzzy TOPSIS. Three participation banks, Albaraka Türk, Türkiye Finans, and Kuveyt Turk, were examined for the mentioned period.

Islamic Banking in GCC

This chapter offers a literature review discussing the origin, history, and the growth of Islamic Banking, especially in the GCC countries. It provides detailed information regarding how Islamic Banking evolved throughout the years and what are the current Islamic financial products. Another interesting topic covered in this literature review is the performance comparison of Islamic and conventional banks during different time periods. Accordingly, the chapter explores how the financial standing of Islamic banks altered in comparison to conventional banks before and after the financial crisis of 2008 by presenting earlier studies from various countries. It is concluded that some potential challenges and future opportunities of the Islamic Banking are yet to be explored.

Ownership Risk in Contemporary Islamic Banking

The unwillingness of contemporary Islamic banks to undertake real business risks has left many to ponder on whether the objectives laid down by the industry's founders have been realized. The need for real risk taking by Islamic banks is critical to justify the profits they earn in the forms of margins, rents, or service charges. This chapter analyzes issues relating to ownership risk (ḍamān al-milkiyyah) in Islamic banking by examining three of its popular products, namely Murabahah (mark-up sale), Ijarah (leasing), and Musharakah Mutanaqisah (diminishing partnership). Following close scrutiny, the chapter concludes that principles of ownership risk as laid down in Fiqh Muamalat (law of transactions) are violated in each of the studied products. Unfortunately, the problem extends beyond these products to include a number of other Islamic financial products. The author calls for closer attention to this important Shari'ah concept of ownership risk in designing Islamic finance products and offers some policy recommendations to improve the current situation.

Shari'ah Governance for Islamic Banking

Due to the rapid global growth in Islamic banking and finance industry, supervisory authorities in many countries have developed different Shari'ah governance (SG) regulatory systems to regulate this industry. However, the current SG practices across jurisdictions still suffer from some drawbacks. This chapter highlights some issues related to the differences across jurisdictions in adopting various SG regulatory practices and supports the discussion using descriptive analysis. The findings indicate that Islamic banks (IBs) demonstrate higher levels of financial performance, on average, when located in regulated jurisdictions, in jurisdictions that restrict cross-membership of scholars in Shari'ah Supervisory Boards (SSBs), and in jurisdictions adopting Centralized supervision model (CSGM). The findings also show that IBs in jurisdictions adopting Reactive regulatory model report the worst performance in comparison with the other models (Passive, Pro-active, Interventionist and Minimalist).

Islamic Banking in North Africa

Investors from North Africa are interested in financial products with ethical focus and specific risk profile and are in accordance with their religious convictions. This chapter reviews the status of Islamic banking (IB) in North Africa in which the governments have started introducing fundamental legal and regulatory frameworks to promote the development of Islamic finance. The study also discusses the prospect of Islamic banking in these jurisdictions. To fulfill the objectives of the proposed study, a qualitative research was performed. The empirical approach of this study analyzed the financial position of different banks in North African countries. Overall, Islamic finance can be an ideal opportunity for financing infrastructure and development projects in North Africa.

Islamic Banking in Pakistan

Since 1960, after a trial of almost 40 years, the reformation of economy of Pakistan from conventional to Islamic could not be achieved. Since 2000, the government changed the strategy to gradually Islamize the economy and adopted a dual system. In this ambit, the State Bank of Pakistan deliberately announced the vision to make the Islamic banking as first choice for users of banking in Pakistan. This chapter bring insights on the background, current state, issues, challenges, and avenues of future policy regarding Islamic banking of Pakistan. The empirical data about Islamic Banking has been collected from the State Bank of Pakistan for the period 2003-2018. This is to evaluate the current state in terms of market performance, modes of Islamic financing, and financing portfolios of Islamic banking. The findings of this chapter show there is a substantial lack of interest by the government to develop the Islamic banking, and Islamic banking is also deviating from its social and ethical proclaims.

Islamic Banking in Indonesia

The Indonesian banking sector has been stable and generally sound over the past decade, partly through efforts by the Bank of Indonesia as Indonesia's central bank and Otoritas Jasa Keuangan as its financial services regulator. This chapter identifies important issues that remain for both conventional and Islamic banking in Indonesia. Authors suggest the government continue its efforts to reform what remains a geographically concentrated industry, to increase the role of bank credit in the economy, and to widen the provision of banking services through technology. Authors highlight the vulnerability of smaller banks in Indonesia to ongoing competitive market pressures and the necessity of creating larger banks through merger or capital raising and improving credit allocation to small and medium-sized businesses. Islamic banking has an important role to play in these developments, and those relating to Islamic social banking.

Islamic Banking in Libya

This chapter identifies the internal and external challenges for Islamic banking in Libya. It is a conceptual work using secondary data where relevant concepts in terms of challenges of the conversion process in Libya were demonstrated. Conversion process is surrounded and faced by many challenges. Internal challenges are not less significant than external ones. Trained human resource, lack of awareness in Islamic banking, and resistance to change to Islamic banks are considered as internal challenges which represent the stage of readiness to convert the sector. On the other hand, the economic structure, the political situation, and the regulatory framework hinder the process externally. This implies that stakeholders should come up with comprehensive strategies and plans about the conversion process which will improve the readiness level of the banks, raise the awareness and willingness of their employees, and increase the skills of banks' staff.