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This paper aims to draw on the bank rent approach to evaluate the existing pattern of financing of Islamic banks and to propose a fairly new conceptualization of Islamic bank rent.

The bank rent theory is adopted to generate the theoretical underpinnings of the issue. After that, empirical evidence from the banking sector of Bangladesh is used to support the arguments.

Repeated transactions under murabaha are observed in the Islamic banking sector of Bangladesh. The asset-based financing gives the Bangladeshi Islamic banks relatively higher Islamic bank rent opportunity for protecting their “franchise value” as Shari’ah-compliant lenders, while responding to the periodic volatility in transaction costs of profit-and-loss sharing.

The bank rent approach suggests that the murabaha syndrome can be ironically justifiable. On the other hand, the current profit-and-loss sharing risk provides an idea of the difficulty in assuming the participatory financing with higher credit risk in practice. Islamic scholars and the regulatory authority need to design an appropriate financial architecture which can create different levels of rent opportunities for Islamic banks to avail the benefit from the variety of Islamic financing as declared by Islamic Shari’ah.

This paper introduces a fairly new concept of “Islamic bank rent” to make sense of the murabaha syndrome. This approach also contributes to clarifying the unique risk and cost to be compensated with the spreads that Islamic banks are expected to earn. To draw empirical evidence, as far as it could be ascertained, the data of both Islamic banks and conventional banks with Islamic banking windows/branches are used for the first time.

This paper aims to draw upon existing debate over “financial sector rent” (bank rent) to analyze the current pattern of financing of Bangladeshi and Indonesian Islamic banks during the period of 2011 and 2015.

The empirical evidence through a comparative approach of analyzing the performance of Islamic banks with that of conventional banks in respective countries – two of the largest countries where majority of the population are Muslims – is drawn to demonstrate the objective.

While Islamic banks in Bangladesh are primarily concentrating on the murabaha (mark-up contract) mode of financing, some transactions under musharaka (partnership/equity-based contract) are observed in the Indonesian Islamic banking sector. This anomaly in Indonesia can be explained by the nature of their musharaka financing which is not of the purely “participatory” financing type. As a result, we can observe the quasi-murabaha syndrome in Indonesian Islamic banking sector. The concentration of asset-based financing including consumers’ financing (hire purchase) in the credit portfolio gives Islamic banks relatively higher Islamic bank rent opportunity for protecting their “franchise value” as Sharīʿah-compliant (Islamic law-compliant) lenders. However, Indonesian Islamic banks share a still infant Islamic banking market, and enjoy less rent opportunity under a severe competition with conventional banks.

The bank rent approach suggests that the syndrome observed both in Bangladesh and Indonesia can be ironically justifiable. Moreover, the mode of profit-and-loss sharing provides, in practice, an idea of the difficulty in managing the participatory financing embedded with high credit risk. Under this scenario, it is necessary for Islamic scholars and the regulatory authority to design an appropriate financial architecture, enabling Islamic banks to avail the benefit from a wider variety of Sharīʿah-based Islamic financing.

This paper expands the newly emerged concept of “Islamic bank rent” to make sense of the murabaha syndrome in Bangladesh and the quasi-murabaha syndrome in Indonesia. This approach also contributes to clarifying the unique risk and cost to be compensated with the spreads that Islamic banks are expected to earn.

This paper aims to assess recent trends in lending modes and to address the reasons for and consequences of changes in Bangladesh’s Islamic banking sector.

Theoretical discourse is used to generate an underpinning for the issues covered by the study. In addition, empirical evidence from the banking sector, including the information derived from interviews with the staff of three Islamic banks, is presented to achieve the research objectives.

The findings clearly demonstrate that the Islamic banking sector has experienced a paradigm shift from participatory financing to asset-based financing. In particular, the murabaha mode of financing dominates the current lending structure, which follows the general trend of the global Islamic banking sector.

It is necessary to concentrate on the potential negative outcomes of the trade-based murabaha mode of financing in a developing country such as Bangladesh, as banks have less incentive under protective rent (profit) opportunities to train the experts to screen and monitor projects in other socially desirable sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing including the small and medium enterprises.

Despite substantial growth of the Islamic banking sector, less research has been conducted to shed analytical light on the operations of Islamic banks from the perspective of loan disbursement to identify the disparities, if any, in between theory and practice in countries where both Islamic and conventional banks operate simultaneously. Using country-specific evidence, this study contributes to the debate by highlighting the paradigm shift of Islamic banks from participatory financing to the dominance of asset-based murabaha and other modes of lending, by identifying the fundamental causes that contribute to such a shift and by highlighting the consequences of such changes.

The skyrocketing rise of Islamic banking is noticeable in not only Islamic countries but also non-Islamic countries during the past few decades. Many conventional banks have started Islamic banking generally by maintaining separate branches/windows and occasionally by pursuing a complete conversion strategy. Following the global trend, two of the full-fledged Islamic banks adopted a conversion strategy consecutively in 2004 and 2008 in Bangladesh. The number of the conversion case is still limited. At this backdrop, this study aims to identify the incentives in the conversion strategy into Islamic banks.

Using the secondary data from the annual reports of the sample banks for both pre- and post-conversion periods, this study adopts the “case study” approach upon the comparison with the performance of conventional banks and other types of Islamic banks.

It is apparent that higher reserve requirement for conventional banks provides the incentive for the conversion into Islamic banks given with less reserve requirement. Under the protective regulatory framework, these converted Islamic banks may have enjoyed the rent for learning during the initial phase after the conversion, even though majority of the funds of these banks are collected from high-cost mudaraba time deposits. Basically, the credit strategy of the converted banks has been quite conservative, resulting in the concentrated portfolio selection on the asset-backed financing. However, the recent engagement of these banks in the Shari'ah-based participatory financing makes their performance a bit vulnerable.

It is becoming difficult to justify a protective regulatory framework for incubating infant Islamic banks if the rent for learning given under the framework would not encourage them to challenge and absorb the risk and uncertainty associated with Shari’ah-based participatory financing. The current mode of profit–loss sharing (PLS) makes it difficult for the regulators to create an appropriate incentive for Islamic banks to challenge the equity-based financing.

The number of the conversion case is limited. Less has been done to investigate the reasons why the conventional banks opt for the conversion into Islamic banks, particularly in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of rent-seeking behaviour and rentier state in the context of ẓulm (injustice and exploitation), which is one of the key concerns in Islam in general and Islamic economics and finance in particular.

As a conceptual paper, it draws on the literature of rent-seeking as part of public choice theory and examines the potential vulnerabilities as well as existence of rent-seeking in Muslim-majority countries, where Islamic finance industry primarily operates.

The paper identifies several areas where both actual and potential rent-seeking exists.

The paper is conceptual. Based on the analysis presented here further studies can be undertaken to determine the scope of rent-seeking and their impact in Muslim-majority societies.

Incorporating rent-seeking in the theoretical and conceptual framework of Islamic economics and finance can enhance understanding about ẓulm and its ubiquitous presence, as Islam has a firm stance to aspire to have a ẓulm-free society.

Understanding rent-seeking behaviour can help appreciate why corruption, inequality and poverty are so entrenched, and why limiting the discourse to ribā (interest) ignores the broader scope of injustice and exploitation.

This might be the first focused paper that conceptually deals with rent-seeking behaviour, connecting the discourse about ribā-interest equation.

This paper aims to propose two benchmarks “Shari’ah-compliant” benchmark and “Shari’ah-based” “raf’ al-haraj” (the removal of hardship) benchmark. The former benchmark can be applied to ensure that a transaction brings “profits on sales” and not “profits on loan”, and the latter benchmark should be addressed to ensure that a transaction does not exploit the customers of Islamic banks.

The authors draw upon the theory of institutional economics, in particular, instrumental and procedural rationality, to argue that the believers can pay their best effort as an exercise of ijtihad to understand and incarnate the logic and rationales implicit in the Qur’anic text.

Currently, there is no benchmark that determines the profit ceiling on murabaha. The authors suggest two types of “gray-zones” – the “Shari’ah-compliant but less contributing to the removal of hardship” and the “controversial on compliance but contributing to the removal of hardship in borrowers” to use as a benchmark in endorsing less shariah-compliant Islamic products.

There is no benchmark or a clear-cut demarcation that can be used to endorse less Shari’ah-compliant Islamic finance. Thus, Shari’ah-compliant’ benchmark and “Shari’ah-based” “raf’ al- haraj” benchmarks can be used to guide whether a financial transaction is acceptable or not. This guideline can be of huge practical relevance for Islamic finance.

There is no sensible study that offers such guidelines that can be used to demarcate whether a particular financial transaction, which has no clear-cut fatwa, is acceptable or not. Hence, the current research is novel and contributes to the existing literature of Islamic finance.

This paper aims to discuss the views of scholarship in South Asia regarding Riba and Riba-free finance, including the conservative and realist schools in mainstream thought and the assimilative and interpretive schools in liberal thought.

The paper uses textual analysis to critically review the writings of scholars in South Asia on contemporary issues regarding Riba and Riba-free finance. It provides a critical review in the light of Islamic jurisprudence and extant Islamic economics literature.

There are several characteristics in conventional banking and finance products that do not comply with Islamic teachings. In this scenario, Islamic banking is comparatively a better alternative to conventional banking and finance products to achieve Shari’ah compliance and avoid indulging in Riba.

Voluntary financial exclusion to avoid Riba is significant in Muslim-majority countries. Increased penetration of Islamic finance requires clarity on what is Riba and confidence in Riba-free alternatives. Outreach efforts of Islamic financial institutions use conventional banking as a frame of reference to provide a critique of interest-based banking. However, the apprehensions within the Islamic finance literature also need to be answered to change perception and enhance people’s willingness to use Islamic banking. Doing this can expedite the process of financial inclusion as well as help in the transformation of the economy on Riba-free foundations in a reasonably quick timeframe.

This is the first study to critically evaluate the financial proposals presented and propagated by the contemporary interpretive school in South Asia.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of product knowledge, perceived quality, perceived risk and perceived value on customers’ intention to invest in Islamic Banks. This study specifically examines an Islamic bank’s term deposits.

Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data collected from 217 customers of an Islamic bank in Indonesia using an online survey.

This study highlights the central and dual roles of perceived risk as both the independent and the intervening variable that mediates the relationship between product knowledge and Muslim customer intention to invest in an Islamic bank’s term deposits.

This study only investigates term deposits as one type of investment in Islamic banks. This study contributes to the literature by examining the role of product knowledge, perceived quality, perceived risk and perceived value on Muslim customer intention to invest in Islamic term deposits.

The results of this study highlight the requirement for Islamic banks to educate customers to improve the depositors’ product knowledge because Muslim customers’ risk and value perception and intention are strongly influenced by product knowledge.

The investigation of perceived risk is particularly relevant for Islamic financial products because of the inherent nature of risk sharing in Islamic finance. This study investigates the role of product knowledge in influencing the Muslim customers’ perception of risk, quality, value and their intention to invest in Islamic bank term deposits. Ideally, the profit loss sharing concept (PLS) should be applied; however, in this context, revenue sharing is applied because of Indonesia’s central bank regulation.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the Islamic banks fix their mark-up for Murabaha contract strategically when traditional banks also co-exist in a country. This study also aims to investigate what role the varying degree of Iman (faith) plays in shaping the preferences of the consumers to choose between the services of Islamic banks and the traditional banks.

This paper constructs a mathematical model like the Bertrand competition in neo-classical economic theory. A religiosity parameter for the consumers has been inserted into their demand functions for their products. A simple optimization technique from mathematics has been used to arrive at the results.

This paper applies game theory to analyze how Islamic banks determine their mark-up when they are facing competition with traditional banks. It considers the demand functions of the consumers for the products of Islamic banks and traditional banks. The demand functions depend on the mark-up, as well as on the interest rate with the difference that they also depend on the religiosity of the consumers. The paper shows that Islamic, as well as the conventional banks charge lower prices for their loans if there is consideration of religiosity aspect of the consumers. Further, it shows that as religiosity increases in a country, the lending rates decrease. The theoretical result is also consistent with the real practices of the banks. Therefore, the dual banking system is welfare enhancing for the customers.

The Islamic banks can leverage the religiosity aspect of the consumers and expand their business competitively by charging them lower mark-up. The adherence of religious customers to the services of Islamic banks creates some kind of loyalty premium for them. This could lead to the reduction of mark-up price triggering competition between both types of banks to attract more customers. Therefore, it is prudent for the government to develop a system for furthering the quality of honesty that is an integral part of Islam.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first paper where it has been analyzed theoretically how the Islamic banks determine their mark-up for Murabaha contract strategically. This approach explains why the rate of return of Islamic banks hinges on the interest rates of traditional banks. One of the novel feature of this paper is that religiosity character of the consumer is good for banks because religiosity prohibits the people to default on their loans.