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Apartment purchase is an increasing investment trend in Islamic banks as clients trusted to eradicate the interest from financial dealings to capture the Islamic Principles. The paper aims to investigate the Shariah compliance in the investment of apartment purchases under Shirkah-ul milk in Bangladesh Islamic banks.

This study examined the perception of 125 clients and 25 managers from five key Islamic banks on the investment practices of apartment purchases. This study applied two data analysis methods: reflective measurement model was operated for examining the consistency, reliability, multicollinearity problems and validity; and Smart PLS-SEM (structural equation model) was used to investigate the direct impact of each explanatory variable on Shari’ah compliance in Islamic banks.

The results indicated that Islamic banks could not strictly maintain the Shariah compliance in apartment purchase. Such Shari’ah non-compliance is due to lack of knowledge and understanding with regard to bank’s objectives and philosophy, weak Shariah board, audit, weak regulatory body and supervision problem. These findings also firmly match clients’ and managers’ perceptions.

A limited size of clients and bankers were involved in this study. The study focuses only on perceptions of Islamic banks’ clients and managers and avoids Muslim clients who involved conventional banks.

This study provides Shariah-compliant alternatives in investment avenue for apartment purchases. These Shariah modes include Apartment Purchase Musharakah Mutanaqasa; Bai-Muajjal; and Apartment Purchases under Shirkah-ul Milk, which captures various limitations against current apartment purchase practices as well as to develop clients’ trust in Islamic banks.

Despite widespread acceptance and exponential growth of Islamic banking across many countries, research indicates some critical issues that can potentially downturn this industry. Literature suggests that like other stakeholders such as customers, some employees too have ambivalent attitude towards its concept and practices. This calls for an empirical assessment. As no such comprehensive instrument was available, this study aims to develop a scale measuring employees' attitude towards Islamic banking.

This scale development process begins with literature review pertinent to employees’ perspective in Islamic banking, followed by a series of steps critical to achieve robustness and to ensure validity and reliability of the instrument. Research methods include a detailed set of qualitative interviews, content validation, pilot testing and exploratory factor analysis with subsequent confirmatory factor analysis.

The final scale embodies five orthogonal dimensions: awareness of Islamic banking, usefulness of Islamic banking, perception of Shariah compliance, patronage towards Islamic banking and attractiveness towards Islamic banking.

This instrument may be used both by research scholars and practicing managers to measure employees’ attitude towards Islamic banking system and practices. It may also serve as a diagnostic tool to identify the areas of strength and weaknesses in the Islamic banking system as perceived by the employees themselves.

An instrument to measure employees’ attitude towards Islamic banking system is much needed as no such comprehensive instrument is available to the best of authors’ knowledge. The study attempts to fulfil this need.

This paper aims to explore the intention to adopt Islamic finance (ItIF) through the mediation of attitudes towards Islamic finance among microbusiness owners of Pakistan.

The study is co-relational and based on cross-sectional data. The authors gathered the data from microbusiness owners through a survey questionnaire. The authors used 236 valid cases to assume the outcomes.

The results through structural equation modeling reveal a significant positive effect of the perception of Shariah compliance (PoSC), knowledge of the Islamic financial system (KoIF), religious preferences (RP) and loyalty on ItIF. Furthermore, attitude towards Islamic finance (AtIF) is a potent factor in developing the relationship between PoSC, KoIF, RP, loyalty and ItIF.

The study’s findings would be helpful for planners and policymakers in developing policies that favourably enhance the attitudes and intentions among individuals towards Islamic financing. The results would inspire readers to go to Islamic finance and an interest-free financial system enriched with Shariah law or Islamic obligations. The study would provide implications for the financial institutions in Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world.

The study offers an apparent thoughtfulness of the empirical evidence from microbusiness owners of Pakistan. The study would provide a plausible mediating contribution of AtIF.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nexus between preferences of customers toward operations of Islamic windows from conventional banks. However, financial institution system of any country has a dominant importance for its growth level. This study makes a comparative analysis and nexus among Islamic windows of conventional banks, Islamic and conventional banks.

A well-designed questionnaire has been made and distributed among three types of bank customers to get their perception and preference regarding services qualities and operations from all three types of financial institutions. This study used statistical package of social sciences software for data analysis.

The results revealed that customers from Islamic windows have serious dispute on its Shariah-compliant regulation and fifty one per cent (51 per cent) of customer did not trust on the member of Shariah board. The mid age of customers preferred the services of Islamic windows, as it has multi-dimensional options for customers. Finally, customers from almost all three types prestigious that technology has found a significant impact for better service qualities and found a positive change in customer behavior.

This study is a first ever attempt in its nature to investigate that the customer’s preferences and different operations exist in three types of banking system in Pakistan. This study also helps to policymakers regarding customer needs and wants to provide better services.

The purpose of this study is to establish the relationship between attitude and the intention to adopt Islamic banking in a Christian-dominated country and whether such a relationship is moderated and boosted by pricing of conventional bank products and social influence.

This study adopts a cross-sectional and correlational design as data were collected between July and September 2019. Data were collected using a questionnaire from a sample of 384 adult individuals with bank accounts in conventional commercial banks from which 300 responded, indicating a response rate of 78%.

The findings of this study indicate that attitude is significantly associated with the intention to adopt Islamic banking. This relationship is moderated and boosted by the pricing of conventional bank products and social influence. The interaction of pricing of conventional bank products with attitude is positive and significantly influence the intention to adopt Islamic banking. The interaction of attitude and social influence is significant but negatively related with the intention to adopt Islamic banking.

This study uses quantitative data which sometimes misses certain information and limits the respondent’s opinions on the study variables. A mixed method research needs to be conducted on pricing of conventional bank products, social influence, attitude and adoption of Islamic banking to gather the respondent’s opinions on the variables.

IB being an alternative source of financing of business in most parts of the world, existing bank customers, international funding agencies and religious leaders could mount pressure on government to speed up the licensing of institutions interested in offering Islamic banking services.

Uganda being a secular state and having finalized Islamic banking laws in early 2018, it is surprising that there is no bank that has so far started offering Islamic banking products.

This study provides an initial empirical evidence from a Christian-dominated country on the moderating effect of pricing of conventional bank products and social influence in the relationship between attitude and intention to adopt Islamic banking.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of Islamic Shariah compliance on customer satisfaction through the mediating effect of service quality in Islamic banking services.

A total of 334 completed and usable questionnaires were collected from customers of Islamic banks in Bangladesh to test the hypotheses. The data were analyzed using SmartPLS 3.

The findings of this study indicate that Islamic Shariah compliance has a positive and significant influence on service quality and customer satisfaction of Islamic banking services. The research findings also indicate that service quality partially mediate the relationship between Islamic Shariah compliance and customer satisfaction of Islamic banking services.

This study only emphasized on the Islamic banking services of Bangladesh and thus findings of the present study may not be applicable to other service areas.

The implications of the research are twofold. First, a strong standardized effect of Islamic Shariah compliance on service quality implies that customers are very sensitive to Shariah compliance related to Islamic banking services. Next, maintaining service quality is another crucial aspect to satisfy customers of Islamic banks. Quality of services will only be materialized when all the promises made by the bank function accordingly. Therefore, strategy makers of Islamic banks should assess the customer service quality and satisfaction regularly to improve the overall service experience of customers.

Limited studies have been conducted to investigate the mediating effect of service quality on the relationship between Shariah compliance and customer satisfaction in Islamic banking services. This study provides valuable insights to Islamic bank to integrate the service quality along with Shariah compliance to enhance customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, religiosity, knowledge and Shariah-compliance with intention to hold Shariah-compliant credit card (SCCC) amongst Muslims and non-Muslims.

Researchers used survey questionnaire to collect data and applied a purposive sampling method, then analyzing the data using descriptive statistics and also multi-group analysis of SmartPLS.

For Muslims, attitude, subjective norm, Shariah-compliance, knowledge and religiosity are positively significant. While for non-Muslims, only attitude and subjective norm are positively significant to intention to hold SCCCs.

The behavioural study only focusses on intention to hold Islamic credit cards, which is constraining the extended model of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) without the actual performance of the behaviour, which is holding SCCCs. Secondly, the research caters for a single method, namely, quantitative without including the qualitative method to better understand and explore other factors affecting consumers’ behavioural intention. The qualitative part can be carried out by conducting interviews with practitioners, regulators and customers. Thirdly, the cultural dimensions are not combined as parts of TPBs’ antecedents for extended model that could be affecting intention, as Malaysia has diverse ethnic groups with different religious background.

In terms of managerial implications, the findings will further assist financial service providers to develop more effective marketing strategies for Islamic financial products not just to cater for the Muslims but also the non-Muslims, who are increasingly attracted to Islamic banking. As many Muslims are still holding conventional credit cards, it is timely for the Islamic financial institutions to attract them with the SCCCs.

Financial marketers are expected to be qualified and well-versed on the different Islamic product structures and also the conventional products. By having such enables them to enlighten and create awareness amongst the targeted consumers in seeking Shariah-compliant financial-related products.

The research will contribute to new theoretical knowledge of an extended behavioural model in relation to customers’ perception towards SCCCs’ acceptance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of Shariah governance (SG) mechanisms on Islamic banks' performance and Shariah compliance quality in the context of Bangladesh.

A semi-structured personal interview tactic was applied to accomplish the research objectives. The data were collected from the regulators, Shariah supervisory boards, Shariah department executives and Shariah experts from the Central Bank (Bangladesh Bank) and Islamic banks in Bangladesh.

The study discovers that the quality of the Board of Directors (BODs), Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB), management and Shariah executives have both positive and negative influences on the Shariah compliance quality, image, goodwill and performance of Islamic banks' in Bangladesh. The compositions, formations and quality of SSB and Shariah officers positively influence the Islamic banks' fatwas, Shariah decisions, compliance quality and firm performance. The study also finds that prevailing banking pressure, current political situation, the willingness of BOD and management and social limitations impact Islamic banks' performance, Shariah compliance quality, image and goodwill.

Based on our findings, if the regulators, BODs and Islamic banks can manage effective and efficient executives, it will create a positive impact on Islamic banks' performance, image, goodwill and quality compliance. As the prevailing banking pressure, current political situation and social limitations hinder the functions and employment system of the Islamic banks as well as result the Islamic banks' image, performance, Shariah implementations and compliance. Thus, the theorist needs to consider these mechanisms in extending the agency, stakeholder and resource dependence theories.

This research extends the literature concerning the influences of Islamic banks' SG mechanisms in Bangladesh. The study also argued not only the efficient and effective mechanisms but also the prevailing banking pressure, current political situation and social limitations impact on Islamic banks' performance and Shariah compliance quality.

The study aims to examine the independence and effectiveness of the Shariah department officers of the Islamic banks in Bangladesh as the Shariah supervisory board (SSB) provides the annual Shariah report and Shariah resolutions based on the reports of the Shariah department officers.

The study applied a qualitative case study to achieve the research objectives. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with the regulators, Shariah supervisory boards, Shariah department executives, and experts from the central bank and Islamic banks of Bangladesh.

The study illustrates that Shariah department officers/Shariah officers in Bangladesh seem to lack independence and decision-making authority in accomplishing ex-post Shariah governance functions (i.e. Shariah audit, Shariah compliance and Shariah review) as well as ensuring Shariah compliance. The Shariah officers cannot work spontaneously on practical issues without any interference. The Shariah officers also have to answer to the management regarding their Shariah functions and are not allowed to come up with any opinions without the authority’s authorization.

The study has significant contributions to the central bank and Islamic banks in Bangladesh. This research suggests that regulators, SSB, and Islamic banks should focus on ensuring Shariah compliance and protecting the independence of Shariah department officers as they are mainly related to practical monitoring of Shariah issues. It also suggests that Shariah department officers should directly report to SSB rather than the management regarding Shariah’s compliance and audit issues.

This study is unique in the context of Bangladesh and the global context as a whole for Shariah department officers.