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The global Islamic financial landscape is changing with rapid advances in technology. The increasingly tech-savvy demography is presenting both opportunities and challenges to the industry. With the advances in e-finance and mobile technologies, financial technology (Fintech) innovations emerged by combining the e-finance, Internet, social networking services, social media, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics. Fintech promises to reshape the Islamic financial landscape by improving processes’ efficiencies, cost-effectiveness, increased distribution, Sharīʿah compliance and financial inclusion. As far as the Islamic fund management industry is concerned, AI seems to be the keyword. Islamic fund managers have recently started to incorporate AI and big data analytics into their strategy in the process of making accurate decisions based on facts and figures, which eliminates any biases and personal intuition. This disruption in status quo is raising new issues, new concerns and new exciting opportunities. While disruption may carry negative connotations, the industry players have been embracing the innovation and potential revolution the technology could offer. Thus, the objective of this chapter is to discuss legal aspects of Fintech and its impact on the Islamic fund management industry in Malaysia. This chapter introduces a historical overview of Fintech and its evolution in the Islamic fund management industry. This chapter further provides an overview of the legal and regulatory aspects of Fintech with regards to the industry. Finally, legal issues and challenges are identified and discussed. Being a legal research, this chapter adopts a qualitative method by analysing the relevant literatures on the subject. This chapter is expected to provide an insight into the application of Fintech and its impact on the Islamic fund management industry in Malaysia.

The change in Malaysian financial environment can be attributed to digitalization as banks are racing to digital maturity by 2020. Historically in Malaysia, the use of credit card was a Fintech development in the 1950s to help Malaysians minimize the burden in carrying cash all the time. The aim of financial technology in the 1990s was to encourage bank customers to use the online banking system instead of only automated teller machine. Fintech services are swiftly interrupting banks' services globally. Similarly, Malaysia's banking sector is experiencing the interruption since as more Fintech organizations are innovating new Fintech service to improve convenience for clienteles. Numerous regulatory agencies in Malaysia and the Malaysian government have set up several initiatives to encourage and provide a vigorous growth in the Malaysian Fintech and digital asset regulatory environment. Expectation Confirmation Model, Technology Acceptance Model, and Cognitive Model are viewed as the most popular frameworks that discuss the continuous intention to use information system. The combination of these three models has led to the creation of Technology Continuance Theory (TCT). TCT postulates that five prominent constructs or antecedents are depicted as key indicators in explaining the users' intentions for continuous use: (1) confirmation, (2) perceived usefulness, (3) perceived ease of use, (4) satisfaction, and (5) attitude. Furthermore, TCT adds to the argument on the consumers' continuance adoptions by assimilating satisfaction and attitude into a single construct.

The implementation of circular economy (CE) initiatives has come under the spotlight in recent years with research ranging from business strategy and practices, supply chain implications, and regional or national policy developments. This highlights the multilevel nature of research and importantly the different scales of action required to move toward the CE. This chapter specifically addresses this issue of levels and scales by presenting and analyzing three complementary cases in the agri-food sector. Lessons learnt from this analysis include the need to consider value and impact across multiple levels and how companies and their supply chains can contribute to the scale of action needed.

We propose a framework based on social network analysis for crowdfunding projects.

Our approach is based on the strength of both weak and strong ties of the social network established by the project proponents. Our approach also considers not only the characteristics of the target population and the close social circle of the proponent but also mainly the community of potential backers strongly and weakly attached to his or her network of friends.

Supported by a literature review on social networks, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, we have established a framework with five constructs (Extension, Cohesion, Centralization, Clustering, and Power) that can help entrepreneurs to raise funds through crowdfunding platforms.

Structural properties of these social networks such as size, cohesion and centralization may prove useful for applicants and platforms interested in succeeding in their projects and for stimulating the interest of scholars in the growing crowdfunding phenomenon.

Crowdfunding though existent, is still at the nascent stage in India being limited to charity and reward-based funding of creative and social projects by the crowd. The Indian regulatory authorities are in the process of formulating policies to encourage and monitor crowdfunding platforms that are based on financial return. The Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in particular is facing financing problems, and crowdfunding could be a viable alternative to traditional sources of finance. In this context, the study attempts to suggest an operational framework for crowdfunding in India with special reference to the MSME sector in terms of eligibility norms, rules for investor protection, sustaining market integrity, providing a supportive infrastructure and defining the role of online crowdfunding platforms.

This is a qualitative study conducted through personal interviews based on unstructured questions. The Directors or Chief Finance Officers of MSME firms and Senior Officials (with minimum work experience of 15 years) in the SME divisions of banks (private and public) located in the National Capital Region, were interviewed to identify the perspectives on the research issues of the chapter. The sampling criterion allowed us to incorporate both investors’ and investees’ concerns regarding the research issues.

These are the inherent nature of qualitative analysis, interviewees’ individual understanding of the subject and sample size.

The study will contribute to the vital discussion prior to the government’s decision on role of equity and debt-based crowdfunding in India in the future.

The study will shed light on the fact that Indian society needs to be well informed about novel investment options such as crowdfunding. The Indian MSME sector can also discuss the opportunities offered by crowdfunding with the government to reduce their problem of access to finance.

The scope of crowdfunding in the Indian MSME sector has not been thoroughly researched, as the phenomenon is new in India. The study highlights how the use of crowdfunding by micro, small and medium firms has the potential to boost manufacturing- and service-related business activities to further increase the national income.

We are interested in how and why people use or take part to crowdfunding projects.

Over the past four years, we have interviewed over 120 crowdfunding requesters and supporters of over 15 project types from dance to technology to publishing.

The key contributions of this research are: An understanding of the work involved, an understanding of motivations for participation, and an understanding of how the design of platforms influences engagement.

We adopt a computer-supported cooperative work approach from sociology, computer science, and design to provide a new perspective to researchers who seek to understand user behavior, motivations, and the mechanisms in place to support engagement with crowdfunding technology.