Finance as Worship or A Commercial Funding: Empirical Evidence from Islamic Banking Industry of Pakistan

Finance as Worship or A Commercial Funding: Empirical Evidence from Islamic Banking Industry of Pakistan The present study aims to determine the perception of general public well versed with the conventional education regarding the contemporary Islamic banking & finance as to whether they consider Islamic banking finance as worship or a commercial funding. A total of 644 questionnaires were distributed to collect the data. Independent sample t-test through SPSS was used to estimate the results. The findings revealed that the mean values of independent sample t-test of the Islamic bankers, conventional bankers, teaching faculty and non-finance industry professionals are 6.07, 4.91, 4.86 and 5.07 respectively. As the mean values of conventional bankers, teaching faculty and non-finance industry professionals are less than that of benchmark level of 6.0. Therefore, the study recommends authorities to formulate policies and initiate Islamic banking awareness programs both at the micro & macro levels. Keywords: Finance, Worship, Commercial Funding, Islamic Finance.

Characteristics of Shari’ah Governance and Incidence of Charity: A case of Pakistan

Characteristics of Shari’ah Governance and Incidence of Charity: A case of Pakistan There are several studies which have evidenced the role of Shari’ah governance on the profitability of Islamic banks for different countries in different data setup. The main purpose of Shari’ah governance is derived from the concept of corporate governance to avoid any non-compliant transactions and book charity against any non- compliant income. There are two kinds of Shari’ah supervisory boards. First is the proactive type that follows the rule of ‘Hisba’ which restricts any non-compliant transaction before it happens. The second type is reactive which detects and reacts to the non-compliant transactions following the Islamic legal system when they happen. The first type would conclude to a reduction in the incidence of charity transactions. In contrast, the second type would conclude to increase in the incidence of charity transaction. The objective of this study is to explore whether the Shari’ah governance of Islamic banks of Pakistan is jointly proactive or reactive. This study is deductive and uses quantitative methods. This study builds an unbalanced panel data of full-fledged Islamic banks of Pakistan using the available data from financial statements. This study is one of its kinds to see the nature of Shari’ah governance based on empirical patterns using Panel FGLS model. The results show that board size, board expertise, and reputation are the reactive factors while the others are proactive factors. Keywords: Shari’ah Supervisory Board, Panel Data Analysis, Shari’ah Disclosure, Shari’ah Controls.

Shari’ah Scholars’ Insight on Shari’ah Governance Framework for Islamic Banking Institutions in Pakistan

Shari’ah Scholars’ Insight on Shari’ah Governance Framework for Islamic Banking Institutions in Pakistan One of the major reasons behind the financial crises generally and the 2008 crises especially, was the poor corporate governance in financial institutions. For ensuring good Islamic corporate governance as well as Shari’ah compliant environment in Islamic banking institutions (IBIs), Shari’ah governance framework (SGF) was developed in many countries including Pakistan. This study is conducted to evaluate the SGF, its implementation level, and the challenges facing the IBIs in the implementation of the SGF in Pakistan. For this purpose, the insight of the Shari’ah scholars is taken on SGF by following the qualitative research approach with semi-structured interviews of the scholars. The respondents included Shari’ah Board’s (SB) members and Incharges of Shari’ah Compliance Department (SCD) in various IBIs in Pakistan. The researchers used Nvivo12 software for the analysis of the interviews data. The study discovered some important issues faced by Islamic banks in the implementation of SGF. It is evident from the research that there are shortcomings and weaknesses in the implementation of Shari’ah governance framework which requires improvements such as interpretation and quantification of the provisions of the SGF, approval from Shari’ah Board (SB) for all minute requirements, reporting line issues, and communication gap between the board of directors (BODs) and the members of SB. This research work suggests that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) should revisit the SGF in the light of the present study and further improve its provisions as well ensure the implementation of SGF in true letter and spirit. Keywords: : Shari’ah governance framework, Shari’ah scholars, Implementation, Islamic banking institutions

Comprehensive and Technical Efficiency of Insurance and Takaful Companies in Pakistan

Comprehensive and Technical Efficiency of Insurance and Takaful Companies in Pakistan Insurance and Takaful companies, both, are business organizations existing for the motive of profit. Large capital is required by the shareholders to establish a company; therefore, the company is expected to earn sufficient profit to meet the expectations of the shareholders. Moreover, a company also has its responsibilities towards its customers in terms of quality service. Shareholders are more concerned with their profit and customers regarding the services. Companies pay claims when the covered persons suffer a loss which can be the death of the family’s only bread earner, factory on fire, theft of business goods etc. Therefore, efficient financial performance of insurance and Takaful companies is important to fulfil the requirements of both: shareholders and clients. This study investigates financial efficiency of insurance and Takaful companies via Data Envelopment Analysis during the period 2011 to 2015. We have taken six general (non - life ) insurance & Takaful companies operating in Pakistan with input factors labor cost, assets and output factors premium / contribution received and percentage of claims paid. Results show that insurance and takaful companies are more than 80% efficient in their operations. For further increasing their efficiencies, they need to reduce their input by less than 20% to have same level of output. Comparing efficiencies of insurance and takaful companies, insurance companies are more efficient in terms of pure technical & super efficiency while takaful companies have higher scale efficiency than insurance companies, though the difference in most of the cases is less than 2%. Both types of companies need to improve their efficiencies by decreasing their assets input and labor cost while retaining the same output level of premiums and claims. Keywords: General insurance, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA); Malmquist index, Takaful, Scale and technical efficiency

Comparison and Analysis on Shariah Standards of AAOIFI & BNM For Mudarbah Product

Comparison and Analysis on Shariah Standards of AAOIFI & BNM For Mudarbah Product There are two main international standard setting bodies which provide shariah, accounting and auditing standards for global Islamic financial industry. These two institutions are the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM). The objective of the current study is to provide an analysis of Mudarbah financing by comparing the standards of the AAOIFI and BNM. Qualitative method of research is used to analyze the content from archival sources. It is established that there are a lot of clauses between the two standards which need to be highlighted for the development of a comprehensive and uniform Islamic financial system. This study will help to achieve this goal by minimizing the gap between AAOIFI and BNM. Keywords: Mudarbah financing, AAOIFI, BNM, Shariah Standards