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Many banking efficiency studies have focused on conventional banks. Recently, Islamic banks have opened in many countries and operated in similar fashion to traditional banks. This chapter measures and compares Islamic banking efficiency to conventional banking efficiency represented by three European countries – Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The study covers the period from 2005 to 2008 in measuring the X-efficiency using the non-parametric method, known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). It reveals that Islamic banks are technically more efficient than conventional banks but are beset by lower allocative efficiency. This results in lower cost efficiency for Islamic banks in comparison to the more conventional banks in Europe.

Purpose – This research analyses the stability of a number of banks operating in Malaysia by using descriptive statistical analysis based on internal variables. These include the characteristics of the bank, capital adequacy ratio, ratio of profitability, liquidity ratio and the ratio of bank operations.

Methodology/approach – Each bank’s stability is studied using z-score analysis. Data are sourced from the balance sheets and income statements of the banks from 2000 to 2011.

Findings – The results indicate that characteristics of a bank do influence a bank’s performance. There are significant differences in financial ratios between Islamic and conventional banking. Islamic banks provide a lower loan loss of capital to cover impaired loans than conventional banks. This provides high capital based on the mean value obtained. The capital ratio allows both sets of banks to meet the capital adequacy ratio set by the Central Bank of Malaysia. Meanwhile, in profitability ratios, conventional banks have higher returns on higher assets, whereas Islamic Banking has higher returns on higher equity. Only 8 Islamic banks and 11 conventional banks are highly stable banking institutions in Malaysia.

Originality/value – Islamic and conventional banking systems in Malaysia need further improvement to deal with unexpected economics crises and increased competition between the two. Hence, Islamic banking must be refined, especially for improving their stability to attract more investments for further development and performance.

This chapter investigates the presence of a difference in the systemic risk level between Islamic and conventional banks in Bangladesh. The authors compare systemic resilience of three types of banks: fully fledged Islamic banks, purely conventional banks (CB), and CB with Islamic windows. The authors use the market-based systemic risk measures of marginal expected shortfall and systemic risk to identify which type is more vulnerable to a systemic event. The authors also use ΔCoVaR to identify which type contributes more to a systemic event. Using a sample of observations on 27 publicly traded banks operating over the 2005–2014 period, the authors find that CB is the least resilient sector to a systemic event, and is the one that has the highest contribution to systemic risk during crisis times.

Inquiring into the role of Islamic and conventional banks regarding the core responsibility of lending is an established phenomenon. This chapter is based on key findings regarding dynamic changes in the structural mix of credit portfolios in Islamic banks and conventional banks of Pakistan.

The nature of the study is exploratory; the sample consists of 5 Islamic banks and 20 conventional banks of Pakistan comparatively evaluated for the time frame of 2008–2014.

Our findings show that for Islamic banks, there is an increasing trend in the credit portfolios as a proportion to assets as well as to equity, whereas in case of conventional banks the findings are opposite. The results further prove a positive and negative growth of credit portfolios as proportional to assets and equity in case of Islamic and conventional banks respectively. It is also observed that credit portfolios of Islamic banks are growing with higher degree as a proportion to equity as compared to proportion to assets. On the other hand, conventional banks show higher degree of decline of credit portfolios as a proportion to equity as compared to assets.

These findings also show that primary stakeholders in Islamic banks are more risk seekers thus more inclined towards risky investments than ordinary credits.

This research examines the bidirectional relationship between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) voluntary disclosure engagement and financial performance of a panel of banks extracted from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) banking industry, covering a period of 11 years (2007–2017). We find that GCC banks, and in particular Islamic banks, voluntarily disclose low level of information related to ESG activities. Using system GMM methodology, we provide evidence that ESG disclosure adversely affects bank performance, regardless of the bank performance measure used. Thus spending on ESG turns out to be costly for GCC banks, a result that is consistent with the agency problem, where managers are likely to reduce long-term expenditures related to ESG actions in order to boost short-term profits. As managers' compensations often relate to short-term financial performance, managers tend to reduce their spending on ESG activities. Furthermore, contrary to previous research, our results indicate that the relationship between ESG and financial performance is bidirectional and dynamic. We also find evidence that ESG disclosure positively affects performance only for well-diversified banks. Finally, although conventional banks disclose significantly more information related to ESG activities, we do not find any significant differences between the two types of banks in the relationship between ESG disclosure and performance. Our suggestion is that these results are consistent with what we call “clientele” and “gravitation” effects, where a customer tends to choose to deal with the bank that reflects his religious beliefs (gravitation effect) and with the bank that provides him with the best services (clientele effect) regardless of its ESG disclosure.

This chapter explores the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from an Islamic Shari'ah-compliant perspective. It provides a comprehensive literature review on CSR with an explicit focus on the Islamic perspective of CSR, Islamic models of CSR, CSR practices in conventional and Islamic banks, and the consequences of CSR to Islamic banks. This chapter's main contribution lies in considering the current CSR literature from a Shari'ah perspective. Likewise, it identifies gaps in the current literature and suggests potential areas for future research. This chapter attempts to improve the understanding of how Islamic banks integrate social responsibility into their operations. The insights from this chapter are helpful to practitioners and academic scholars in Islamic finance, accounting, and CSR. This chapter emphasizes the importance of incorporating Islamic values and principles into CSR practices and encourages further research and investigation in this area.

This study examines the legal codification of nascent markets, specifically, the process of defining and incorporating Islamic banking and organic agriculture within the legal system in Turkey. I find that actors’ priorities differ significantly with respect to formal codification and that the existing legal order and socio-political and economic contexts shape how state and non-state actors influence legislative and regulative action. This study contributes to our understanding of how actors and their ideological commitments and relational concerns affect the legal formulation of new industries.

German ethical banks have experienced a significant increase in customers, deposits, and lending. They aim to establish a fairer banking system. But the simultaneous pursuit of social, ecological, and economic goals leaves them vulnerable to conflicting orders of worth. The authors examine the normative foundations that ethical bank employees refer to when they describe their everyday practices and identify the specific problems that arise from negotiating between moral principles and economic demands to provide insights into the impacts, constraints, and paradoxes of normatively oriented business practices. Drawing on the theoretical framework of the sociology of critique, the authors assume that moral categories, social processes of interpretation, and justification are an essential part of markets. Ethical banking is characterized by the need to meet both market-limiting and market-expanding requirements, and this particularly becomes contentious when dealing with economic growth. By analyzing ethical banks’ freely accessible documents, the authors first outline the institutional guidelines. In a second step, the authors analyze 27 qualitative interviews with employees of ethical banks to gain insights into everyday lending practices and action-guiding normative orientations. The goal of this chapter is to examine the tensions that may arise from applying normative guidelines under the condition of increasing economic requirements and to disclose the way that ethical banks negotiate between mechanisms of expansion and limitation. The analysis of this chapter points out a paradox of ethical banking: due to the banks’ economic expansion, investments corresponding to their ethical commitments tend to become a luxury they cannot afford.

The financial crisis at the end of the past decade resulted in downturns in stock markets and the collapse of many large banks around the world. It encouraged economists worldwide to consider alternative financial solutions. Attention has been focused on Islamic finance as an alternative model. This study examines the performance of Islamic banks in 10 Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries over the period of 2005–2010.

It is an intertemporal analysis where it compares the profitability, liquidity, risk and solvency, and efficiency of 43 Islamic banks before and after the financial crisis.

The results show that the financial crisis negatively affected the performance of Islamic banks. The profitability and liquidity of Islamic banks in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries decreased drastically after the crisis. Islamic banks in non-GCC countries were efficient and more profitable compared to GCC countries. However, they took excessive risk during and after the financial crisis. The chapter concludes that Islamic financial institutions are not immune from the effects of the global recession.

The financial crisis has led to a greater recognition of the importance of liquidity risks. Reinforcing regulations and setting up a strong liquidity management framework are needed to improve the Islamic financial industry.

The unique characteristic of Islamic bank leads in governance and disclosure. Using stakeholder, signaling, and market discipline theory, governance and adequate disclosure may increase bank soundness. This study aims to investigate the relationship of sharia disclosure and Sharia Supervisory Board in influencing Islamic bank soundness in the different regulatory framework of the country. Using purposive sampling, the research covered 84 Islamic banks in 16 countries during the period 2013–2015 with lag data of Islamic bank soundness. The result shows sharia disclosure influences on Islamic bank soundness for management efficiency, capital adequacy ratio, asset quality, and liquidity. The results also show that sharia disclosure mediates the indirect effect of SSB on Islamic bank soundness. The regulatory framework (sharia accounting standard and SSB regulation) shows moderating effect of regulation framework proved on the association of sharia disclosure with management efficiency, capital, and liquidity. The effect is indirectly depending on the regulatory framework for proxy management efficiency, capital, and liquidity. The implication of the research suggests that sharia disclosure could increase the market discipline mechanism of Islamic bank stream. The Islamic bank can increase the transparency using sharia disclosure as a branding for increasing public trust, even though in the deficient Islamic bank regulation countries.