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The purpose of this paper is to explain and critically analyse the Sharīʿah screening criteria and cleansing process for income generated from stocks with a special focus on a newly developed ISRA-Bloomberg methodology.

The paper focuses on the methodology of ISRA-Bloomberg in terms of Sharīʿah screening of stocks and the income cleansing process. To achieve this objective, this paper adopts a descriptive approach.

The methodology of ISRA-Bloomberg is unique in terms of its criterion for screening stocks, the cleansing process and coverage of the universe of stocks. It facilitates the investors by offering a novel colour-coding scheme to indicate the Sharīʿah compliance of a stock. It also provides the exact ratios of the Sharīʿah-compliance criteria to the investors so they can closely observe changes in the trend of ratios and decide beforehand whether or not a company is likely to remain within the Sharīʿah-compliant list. The paper further discusses the issues in the screening and cleansing practices faced by the industry.

This research is limited to the criteria of screening and income purification of stocks which have been used by ISRA-Bloomberg from a Sharīʿah perspective.

The robust screening criteria and comprehensive analysis of the stocks will enhance the confidence of Islamic capital market participants. The investors, regulators and index providers will be equally able to benefit from this initiative.

The paper focuses on the recently established methodology of ISRA-Bloomberg, which has not been discussed in the literature until now. The methodology, because of its exceptionality, may add a new dimension to Sharīʿah screening and cleansing of stocks.

This paper aims to assess the ethical disclosure of Islamic banks (IBs) under different accounting regimes and to ascertain whether the adoption of an Islamic accounting standards (Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions [AAOIFI]) promotes the practice of ethical disclosure.

An ethical identity disclosure index was developed to serve as a benchmark to assess the level of the communicated ethical identity disclosure (CEID) of 47 IBs over 18 countries using annual reports.

The findings suggest that, overall, there is poor ethical disclosure practices and even banks that had some initiatives towards disclosures had no proper reference to benchmark for effective implementation of ethical reporting standards and had no plans for ethical and socially responsible schemes. There was no evidence to suggest that IBs that adapted the religious-based accounting regime (AAOIFI) had better levels of ethical disclosure.

Though poor practices of CEID are expected to increase reputational risks and the likelihood of loss of religious conscious customers and investors’ confidence and therefore market share and performance in the long-term, the current practice does not concur with this expectation. Furthermore, since there is no evidence to support the notion that the adoption of AAOIFI standards would support greater initiatives towards level of ethical identity disclosures, a mandatory requirement for effective disclosure through enforcement of AAOIFI’s financial reporting standards, specifically with regard to ethics and social and environmental commitment is needed.

In addition to introducing commonly accepted regulatory and supervisory guidelines and best practices that cater for the specificities of Islamic banking could significantly improve the level of CEID of IBs. In addition, the standardization of ethical (non-financial) reporting practices of IBs through guidelines and key performance indicators will facilitate CEID practices of IBs.

This paper contends that for Islamic bankers, ethics is an entrenched part of the business practice and should mitigate unethical behaviour, more so with the additional filter of Sharīʿah supervisory boards. Even if there are such practices due to ineffectiveness of Sharīʿah committees, management pressure to meet performance expectations and competitive pressures from peers in the conventional banking sector, it will not be in the interest of the banks to report them.