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Free banking theory, as developed in Adam Smith’s 1776 treatise, “The Wealth of Nations” is a useful tool in determining the extent to which the “invisible hand of the market” should prevail in regulatory policy. The purpose of this study is to provide a timely review of the literature, evaluating the theory’s relevance to regulation of financial technology generally and cryptocurrencies (cryptos) specifically.

The methodology is qualitative, applying free banking theory as developed in the literature to technology-defined environments. Recent legislative developments in the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the UK, European Union and the USA, are drawn upon.

Participants in volatile cryptocurrency markets should bear the consequences of inadvisable investments in accordance with free banking theory. The decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies and the exchanges on which these are traded militate against coordinated oversight by central banks, supporting a qualified free banking approach. Differences regarding statutory definitions of cryptos as units of exchange, tokens or investment securities and the propensity of these to transition between categories across the business cycle render attempts at concerted classification at the international level problematic. Prevention of criminality through extension of Suspicious Activity Reporting to exchanges and intermediaries should be the principal objective of policymakers, rather than definitions of evolving products that risk stifling technological innovation.

The study proposes that instead of a traditional regulatory approach to cryptos, which emphasises holders’ safety and compensation, a free banking approach combined with a focus on criminality would be a more effective and pragmatic way forward.

This paper aims to achieve two goals: first, to evaluate the existing interest-free monetary policy tools in the major Islamic financial hubs of Malaysia, Pakistan and Bahrain and; second, to suggest how monetary policy tools in Turkey can be used in other countries.

This study follows a qualitative research method based on literature review, comparison, evaluation and design.

The policy rate cannot be used due to Shariah concerns. The reserve requirement depends on qard, and the reserves should be kept separately in the central bank. In terms of ijarah sukuk, Shariah concerns should be taken into account and a new structure, as displayed in Figure 3, should be followed. Government investment certificates can be used as an interest-free monetary policy tool. A genuine mudarabah interbank investments can also be used. Wadiah acceptance with no habitual gift can be used as well, and Tawarruq and central bank notes are not preferable due to Shariah concerns as well. Having said that, a Turkey-based tawarruq platform can be structured for others to use instead of applying to London.

This paper’s unique suggestion is to develop an interbank taqaruz market and a taqaruz method with the central bank. It is also unique for Turkey in the subject.

This study aims to investigate the effect of the diversity of the board of directors (BOD) and the shariah supervisory board (SSB) on credit risk, insolvency, operations, reputation, rate of deposit return risk (RDRR) and equity-based financing risk (EBFR) of Islamic banks (IB).

The study uses 68 IBs from 19 countries covering 2009 to 2019. BOD and SSB diversity attributes data were hand-collected from the annual reports. Financial data were collected from the bankscope database. The robustness test and two-step system generalized method of moment estimation technique were used to address potential endogeneity issues.

This study provides evidence that diversity in the experience and cross-membership of board members decreases the risk. Gender diversity increases the risk, but the BOD’s education level diversity has no relationship with risk. More interestingly, influences in the experience and cross-membership of the SSB’s members positively influence risk. However, members’ education levels and gender diversity have not been proven to affect risk.

The paper recommends that Islamic banking authorities play a stronger role and make a greater effort in driving corporate governance reform. Also, determining individual characteristics of the board is a requirement to become a member of a BOD or an SSB.

This paper expands the commitment literature through the diversity of the BOD’s and the SSB’s members in terms of their education levels, experience, cross-membership and gender. This study expands the list of potential risks for IBs, by including the RDRR and EBFR.

Cryptocurrency arose, and grew in popularity, following the financial crisis of 2008 built upon a promise of decentralizing money and payments. An examination of the history of money and banking in the United States demonstrates that stable money benefits from strict controls and commitments by a centralized government through chartering restrictions and a broad safety net, rather than decentralization. In addition, financial crises happen when the government allows money creation to occur outside of official channels. The US central bank is then forced into a policy of supporting a range of money-like assets in order to maintain a grip on monetary policy and some semblance of financial stability.

In addition, this chapter argues that cryptocurrency as a form of shadow money shares many of the problematic attributes of both the privately issued bank notes that created instability during the “free banking” era and the “shadow banking” activities that contributed to the 2008 crisis. In this sense, rather than being a novel and disruptive idea, cryptocurrency replicates many of the systemically destabilizing aspects of privately issued money and money-like instruments.

This chapter proposes that, rather than allowing a new, digital “free banking” era to emerge, there are better alternatives. Specifically, it argues that the Federal Reserve (Fed) should use its tools to improve public payment systems, enact robust utility-like regulations for private digital currencies and limit the likelihood of bubbles using prudential measures.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between economic freedom and Islamic rural banks' efficiency in the case of Indonesia.

The study covers 40 Islamic rural banks in 34 Indonesian regions from 2014 to 2020. Tobit regression is utilized to expose the impact of economic freedom on the efficiency of Islamic rural banks, and nonparametric frontier data envelopment analysis is used to acquire banks' technical efficiency.

The findings reveal that overall economic freedom has a strong favorable impact on the efficiency of Islamic rural banks. The study’s breakdown components suggest that business freedom, government spending and investment freedom are favorable indicators, whereas government integrity and tax burden are negative indicators, and all indicators agree with previous studies.

This research can serve as a guideline for Islamic rural bank management in terms of maintaining financial efficiency. The government should think about the ramifications of financial sector liberalization and reforms, according to these findings. When financial intermediaries operate in a less constrained environment, they are more likely to pursue competitive practices that increase their operating rate and other efficiency metrics. Finally, academics might utilize this information to investigate the economic flexibility of Islamic rural banks.

The novelty of this study is in using data envelopment analysis and Tobit regression to identify economic freedom and Islamic rural banks' efficiency. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the study of the role of economic freedom in Islamic rural bank's efficiency is limited, particularly in the context of Indonesia.

The main issue is whether customers prefer convenience over Shariah compliance or the opposite when they decide their Islamic banking needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore why customers adopt Islamic banking products and services: Shariah compliance or convenience?

Using convenience sampling, 310 respondents’ data were collected through online survey. For testing the fit and hypotheses of the proposed model, AMOS 25 software and Smart-PLS 4.0 software have been used.

Attitude, Islamic value and convenience have significant determinants of Islamic banking products and services. Shariah compliance has no direct or indirect influence on neither intention nor actual behaviour to adopt Islamic banking services. Furthermore, gender has no such differential effect on the adoption.

Managers and marketers of Islamic banks may benefit from the findings of this study, which demonstrate fresh insights regarding the factors which help in strategy formulations to promote Islamic banking services.

The growth of Islamic banks, branches and windows is remarkable in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries in the world. This paper postulates the behavioural finance studies in Islamic banking and finance research stream by extending the theory of planned behaviour of Ajzen (1985) as all the three new constructs (Islamic value, convenienc and Shariah compliance) are statistically fit for further studies. However, only Islamic value and convenience are the two significant factors which drive customers to take decision in the proposed model. This study gives insights to the bankers and authority about the consumer behaviour.

This study aims to explore the prospects of istijrar financing in the Islamic banking of Bangladesh. Istijrar is a supply sale contract that facilitates recurrent transactions under a master agreement without needing a deal-to-deal agreement. Murabahah financing in Bangladesh is being criticized for Shari’ah violations, which can be minimized if istijrar financing is integrated and applied.

The study uses a qualitative approach, primarily using a semistructured interview method to collect the primary data. The study conducted 13 one-to-one interviews with leading Islamic banking experts in the country, including Shari’ah scholars, Islamic bankers and regulators. Besides, the study consults with classical and contemporary fiqhi sources to realize the status of istijrar sale in Islamic law. Thematic analysis is performed to explore the qualitative data.

The study finds that istijrar financing has great prospects in the Islamic banking of Bangladesh. Istijrar is applicable in consumer financing and can be offered as an alternative or supplement to murabahah. Also, postimport murabahah financing can be structured with istijrar, while it can also be used in export financing. Besides, a few challenges should be dealt with before offering istijrar, such as proper structure, lack of literacy, stakeholders’ awareness, Shari’ah and regulatory approval and alignment with the law of the land.

Murabahah financing is dominant on the asset side of Islamic banks’ balance sheets in Bangladesh. Murabahah practice in Bangladesh is frequently criticized for some possible Shari’ah violations. Also, more documents are needed for each murabahah operation, which eventually accelerates the costs. Applying istijrar would minimize these issues as it does not require a new contract for each deal. Multiple supplies can be done under a single agreement. Besides, istijrar reduces documentation hassle and transaction costs. Istijrar would be an easy practice and benefit the bank and its clients.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge and the Islamic banking industry. The existing studies have not adequately addressed the potential of istijrar in Islamic banking. In addition, this study will be an eye-opener for Islamic bankers to develop new products with istijrar.

This paper aims to determine whether Islamic banks (IBs) and conventional banks (CBs) in Tunisia are distinguishable from one another based on financial characteristics during the 2005–2014 period covering the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) and the 2011 Tunisian revolution.

For the comparison between IBs and CBs, 11 hypotheses are formulated to distinguish between the two types of banks. The authors use a univariate analysis based on the multi-dimension figures investigation and a multivariate one based on the robust OLS technique for panel linear regression with mixed effects.

Bank-specific factors, dummy and dummy interacting variables indicate that there are differences between Islamic and conventional bank behavior. Both methods show that IBs are more liquid, more profitable and riskier than CBs. Post-2011 Tunisian revolution, small IBs (small CBs) are more (less) solvent, large IBs are more stable and both types of banks are more liquid, which explain why Tunisian governments have relay on bank system to cover budget deficits post-2011 revolution.

In investigating the feature of IBs and CBs from the Tunisian context, the authors take into account the effect of two abnormal events (2008 GFC and 2011 Tunisian revolution) on IBs through interaction variables.

In the backdrop of an increase in market-based banking activities, this paper aims to study operational efficiency of Indian banking sector during 2009–2010 through 2017–2018 considering Capital Gain and Gain from Forex Market (as desirable outputs) and Slippage (as undesirable byproducts) simultaneously, along with Advances – a desirable output considered in the traditional banking performance assessment literature. This enables to have an assessment of performance (as captured by the measured efficiency scores) of Indian Banks following an alternative viewpoint about the banking activities. The authors also explain such efficiency scores in terms of bank-specific factors, banking industry competition scenario and interest rate channel.

Using data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, the authors estimate six alternatives but interlinked operational efficiency scores (TES) of the Indian domestic commercial banks. In the second stage, they explain such TES in terms of bank-specific factors, banking industry competition scenario and interest rate channel.

The authors observe that the private sector banks as a group outperform those under public ownership. Moreover, although the private sector banks could maintain somewhat consistency in their operational efficiency performance over the sample period, public sector banks clearly show a declining tendency. The second stage econometric estimation results show that the priority sector lending has a negative effect on efficiency. Interestingly, the authors get varying results for the relationship between maturity and efficiency score depending on banks’ strategies on stressed assets management. Furthermore, the analyses result that banks are not so efficient in managing relatively larger-volume loans. It is also observed that banks’ efficiency positively depends on the Credit-to-Deposit (CD) ratio. It is found that the overall operational efficiency of the banks to manage their credit risk portfolio improves with a reduction in the lending rate (LR). However, the interaction of lending activities and capital market shows that with the increase in LR, corporate borrowers may switch to capital market to explore for desired funds, which may induce the banking sector to investment in capital markets and create a positive market sentiment.

Literature, although scanty, is there dealing stressed assets of a bank as some undesirable byproducts of its operational and business activities. However, such literature mostly done within the traditional framework of banking business activities and modern market-based business activities are almost absent in the literature. The authors have done it in the present study.

Bank lending is the major source of monetary expansion. Bank-led money creation is a key issue in both conventional and Islamic financial systems. The purpose of this paper is to examine the issues related to Islamic banking money creation. In this conceptual paper, the authors investigate the involvement of profit and loss sharing (PLS) in money creation and especially how can PLS limit money creation “out of nothing.” In this regard, the authors examine the potential of the PLS principle in tackling the excessive money creation phenomenon.

This study uses a normative approach regarding Islamic bank money creation that fits Sharia directives. In fact, this study discusses “what ought to be,” that is, the values and norms of PLS money creation that impede excessive money creation.

Overall, Islamic banks create money differently compared to conventional ones. Especially, by avoiding a purely financial intermediary, money creation under the PLS principle sustains a strong relationship with the real economy and leads to a lower money multiplier. Therefore, PLS mechanisms allow financing through real assets and not credit assets “out of nothing.” This could prevent excessive money creation from causing harmful effects on indebtedness and financial instability.

PLS offers a valuable resolution for banking system money creation through the optimization of Islamic bank financing by facilitating the separation of the monetary function from the credit one. This reform thought reinforces the stability value of money allowing it to fully perform its functions with reference to the directives of Sharia. This especially allows the integrity and purchasing power of money, the reduction of the gap between the evolution of both real and financial economies and, consequently, the indebtedness and crisis. It is recommended to promote PLS financing by reforming institutional and regulatory constraints.

This study addresses the contemporary issue of money creation by Islamic banks through the PLS approach. The conceptual framework of this paper highlights the reformist role of PLS in limiting money creation through Mudarabah approach within fractional reserve banking.