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The worldwide trend of Financial Technology (Fintech) reached the Malaysian shores in the past few years, making the observations and analysis of this subject more critical than ever. Furthermore, Fintech has developed to be an unavoidable area in the Islamic finance industry. Therefore, this chapter seeks to analyse the development of Fintech in the Islamic finance industry and its connection to Islamic economics, as well as the impact towards existing regulatory mechanisms. While the scarcity of studies on this area is apparent, the authors have identified the undebatable need to regulate the development of the Fintech industry and its effects while analysing the drawbacks and positive effects of Fintech towards parties involved in the Islamic finance industry. This chapter objectively studies the phenomenon of Islamic Fintech globally with emphasis on Malaysia through analytical research methods by utilising existing facts and findings on Fintech to make proposals for possible issues identified. Existing legal frameworks are studied and scrutinised to determine whether they can accommodate the rapidly evolving Fintech. The new Regulatory Sandbox by Malaysia’s central bank and existing laws are also examined. It is found that there is a room for improvement to the current regulatory framework.

Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as an analytical framework, this paper aims to investigate the direct effects of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, price fairness and Islamic altruism. It also explores how these path linkages can be moderated by Islamic altruism.

Data are gathered via survey questionnaires on 287 Muslim bank customers in major cities of East Malaysia. The data are then tested using partial least squares.

The results show that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, price fairness and Islamic altruism are significantly influenced by Muslim bank customers’ intention to choose Islamic home financing products. Islamic altruism is also found to significantly moderate the relationship between price fairness and behavioural intention.

Three limitations are available for future research that include the geographical restriction, respondents’ selection and a limited number of battery items used.

Essentially, the results of this study serve as a guide for Islamic bank managers or mortgage providers to improve their pertinent marketing strategies, which are vital to enhancing the acceptance rate of Islamic mortgage.

This study extends the TPB model by incorporating price fairness and Islamic altruism into the Islamic home financing context.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Tawarruq Islamic home financing (IHF) products remain untouched and maintain their position as the top IHF product in Malaysia.

The study adopted a qualitative research methodology that included both literature review and content analysis. Firstly, the existing studies and literature were reviewed to compare different types of IHF. The composition of IHF products offered by these Islamic banks was then investigated further to analyse each bank’s progress in IHF from 2015 to 2019. The data were gathered from bank websites, brochures, product disclosure sheets and annual reports.

The findings reveal that around 62.5% of Islamic banks offered Tawarruq for IHF in the year 2020. For the banks that offered Tawarruq, the amount of the financing continued to grow each year. The plausible reason for the preference for Tawarruq was its less risky nature, despite facing numerous operating, legal and Shariah issues.

This study has several limitations, including the fact that it was limited to home financing products only, the methodology used and the research period.

This study aimed to provide beneficial insights into the use of Tawarruq, which has been a source of concern for regulators as well as steps made to reduce its usage in the industry. Islamic banks should be more proactive in developing non-Tawarruq products to enhance product innovation in the market and minimise the heavy reliance on debt-based products.

This study provides useful insights by analysing IHF in depth for each Islamic bank and making recommendations for future research. Specifically, the method facilitated critical discussions and comparisons to previous research findings as to why Tawarruq has remained popular.

This paper aims to examine how homes can be purchased and financed by using Ijara-based diminishing Musharaka (IDM) modes of financing and thus both the home buyer (HB) and Islamic Bank (IB) become joint owners and share rental income jointly according to their respective shares. Such practice can help to avoid interest-based mortgage financing and eliminates excessive risks of bankruptcy as it often happens in conventional interest-based system.

A mathematical model as well as rental income, payments and share schedules for IDM will be developed where both the HB and IB will initially own the home. As the HB gradually pays off the principal amount, his or her share will increase while the share of the IB will gradually decrease as stipulated in the contract. Eventually, the HB will buy back all the shares and thus will own the home without paying for mortgage interest and taking excessive risks of foreclosures or living in constant fear of losing home over approximately 20 to 30 years of the tenure of the mortgage payments.

The HB can own home without paying any interest and without taking excessive risks of foreclosures. The HB is not borrower rather partners in business. In addition, the HB can minimize the total payments compared to interest-based mortgage financing. In the current IDM model, payments are flexible, and the HB will not be required to make regular installment payments, rather he or she receives regular rental income if the HB chooses not to live in the home. Even if HB lives in the home, part of the home can be rented, and the HB will receive regular share of rental income in each month. The HB will not lose the home even if he does not pay any installment while in interest-based mortgage system, the HB may lose the home if the HB stops installment payments even for a couple of months after paying for 29 years for 30 years mortgage. IDM mode of financing is risk free and worry free, and it instantaneously creates rental income for the HB, like any other business.

The current IDM model is one of the most recent, and unique approach of home financing, and it is extremely flexible and free from many restrictions compared to the existing similar models. Many of the existing diminishing Musharaka models impose many restrictions on the HB, such as the HB cannot even own or rent the place, cannot remodel or rebuild the place unless the HB pays off all the outstanding price of the home. If the current flexible IDM model is implemented, it will be truly revolutionary and even the people from other faith group will be extremely interested to join as HB and buy their homes by pursuing IDM mode of financing because it is risk free as well as it will free HB from the financial slavery of monthly installment payments for about two to three decades, especially during the most important and most valuable prime life time of the HB. The IDM model will unveil a potential and a promise to financial freedom by removing all constraints and preconditions in purchasing and financing homes.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new Islamic credit card model that is in line with Shariah principles and can be adopted as an alternative to contemporary Islamic credit card models by Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia.

This paper is theoretical in nature and mainly based on descriptive research method approach.

The overall findings indicate that the contemporary practice of Islamic credit card in Malaysia is still controversial in its design and operation. Moreover, the adoption and practice of Shariah contracts in bay’ al-inah, tawarruq and ujrah models are not in line with fundamental doctrines of Shariah and are imbued with the practice of hilah (legal trick), which allows them to circumvent the prohibition of riba. The paper indicates that Al-Muqassah model possibly has a comparative advantage in design and operation when compared with the bay’ al-inah, tawarruq or ujrah models.

The paper is limited to develop a new Shariah-compliant Islamic credit card model. The paper presents a design and defines the underlying Islamic financial contracts and their working mechanisms in the proposed model. However, it will not address other related areas like consumer perception, legal and regulatory requirements.

The paper will have direct implications on contemporary practice of Islamic credit card in Malaysia and elsewhere. The practice of Al-Muqassah model can also possibly have effects on common well-being and economic development.

The paper has relevance for Islamic financial institutions offering Islamic credit cards. The proposed model is fully in line with fundamental doctrines of Shariah and performs the key functions of an Islamic credit card.

The majority of economic crises impact the wealth of people which in turn affect their financial capacity to purchase residential properties. However, the home financing method may also have an impact on the behaviour of house prices. This chapter intends to test argued resilience of Islamic finance to situations of financial crisis by using an Islamic home financing product called Enhanced Musharakah Mutanaqisah (EMM) which was proposed by Asadov and Ibrahim (2018) as an example and compare its performance to conventional mortgage. Two different models of home financing, conventional and EMM based ones are developed with the former reflecting basic features of conventional mortgage and the latter using rental rates and house price indices for product pricing. Both models are compared using aggregate data for the US housing market for the past 30 years in order to demonstrate the resilience of the EMM model. The findings of the study show that EMM is more flexible in terms of reflecting real situations in both the housing market and aggregate economy as compared to the conventional model. Its pricing is more accommodating particularly during times of economic downturns, and it can potentially provide the solution to numerous mortgage defaults arising from such conditions. Despite the proposed models being tested using data only from the United States, the analysis can be generalized for other countries as well. The implementation of the EMM model, as an example of Shariah-based Islamic financial product, is expected to bring fairness and justice in the relationship between financial institutions and its clients. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt of simulating a Musharakah Mutanaqisah based home financing using both actual rental rates and house prices for product pricing.

This paper aims to analyze the legal interpretation of three Islamic financing products considered for approval by US authorities, from the United Bank of Kuwait and Guidance Residential, even though the USA has not enacted any Shari’ah legislation in relation to the Islamic law of transactions (fiqh mu’amalat).

This paper primarily adopted qualitative document and content analysis, supported by quantitative numerical analysis, in reviewing legal interpretive letters from the US Office of the Comptroller of Currency and National Administrator of Banks (OCC) and the US Department of Revenue.

The research found that in assessing economic substance over legal form, each of the three products involved risk-free transactions and interest.

The research had access to published OCC, Department of Revenue and US Patent Office material that fully disclosed the mechanics of each of the selected products.

The implication for the Islamic financial institutions involves Shari’ah compliance risk. When tested against the Islamic normative theory of lawful profit, it confirms that the products are non-compliant.

The social implication is customer awareness of Shari’ah non-compliance in the USA and the impact for other jurisdictions carrying the same products.

The significance of this research for Islamic banking product design and development is that it enhances the ability to block the legal means to an unlawful outcome (sadd al-dhara’i), thereby avoiding harm (al-darar) attributed to usury (riba), and upholding what is in the public interest (maslahah), to fulfil one of the objectives of the Shari’ah (maqasid al-Shari’ah), which is to protect wealth (hafiz al-mal).

This research is concerned with the development of Salam, which caters for the specific needs of farmers, who form a vital yet fragile group in most developing nations. Based on the local context of Aceh Province in Indonesia which is considered to be parallel with other developing countries, the purpose of this paper is to embrace the whole set of issues and sketch out an extended Business Model Canvas (BMC) for Salam financing by delineating the three W’s of What, Why and How Salam can be offered by Islamic Banks (IBs).

In-depth interviews were conducted with key stakeholders comprising of farmers, higher-ranking bankers of IBs, members of the Syariah Supervisory Board and academicians who are experts in Islamic finance. The re sults of the interviews added to a review of the literature were also mapped onto an extended canvas model.

Several interesting insights are derived and, primarily, that Salam is a feasible product to be offered by IBs, provided that there is a significant change in the thinking paradigm and risk mitigation models by all stakeholders, but mainly the IBs and the regulators.

This study may be limited in the number and range of respondents who were chosen for interview. There are possibly other key informants, such as regulators and local custom figures, who may willing to provide useful information. The application of BMC for Salam may also be relatively new, hence its justification for a wider implementation may still need further analysis.

This study is deemed to add significant perspectives on product development and innovation in Islamic banking and particularly regarding Salam. This study advances the method used to study Salam by contextualising the product mapping of Salam into an extended BMC.

This study was carried out to examine the effect of cocoa extract (CE) on plasma glucose levels in hyperglycaemic rats induced with streptozotocin. Three concentrations of CE were used to study its effect on oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). In the normal group, CE at 0.5 per cent concentration had significantly reduced the glucose level (p<0.05) at 0 and 60 min, 1.0 per cent at 0 (p<0.05), 60 (p<0.01) and 180 min (p<0.01), 3.0 per cent at 60 (p<0.05) and 180 min (p<0.01) as compared to control. In hyperglycaemic group, 3.0 per cent CE had reduced the glucose level significantly (p<0.05) at 60 as compared to control. Based on the results from OGTT, 3.0 per cent concentration was used to evaluate the effect of CE in a 2‐week study. There was no significant difference in reduced plasma glucose levels and lipid profiles in hyperglycaemic and normal rats, which were given basal diet enriched with 3.0 per cent CE extracted from cocoa powder as compared to the control (basal diet).

The purpose of this study is to examine the contributing factors that affect consumer behaviour of Islamic home financing in Malaysia. The effects of perceived religiosity on property, perceived Islamic debt principle and perceived maqasid on homeownership on consumer behaviour are examined. Furthermore, the effects of perceived religiosity and consumer behaviour on religious satisfaction are also investigated.

Using the theory of Islamic consumer behaviour (TiCB) as a baseline theory identified from the literature, this study proposes a conceptual model of consumer behaviour of Islamic home financing in Malaysia. Data from the 205 usable questionnaires are analysed using partial least squares (PLS).

The PLS results suggest that perceived religiosity on property, perceived Islamic debt principle and perceived maqasid on homeownership are instrumental in determining consumer behaviour, thus revealing these factors as “Islamic factors” that represent the TiCB. Furthermore, the effect of consumer behaviour on religious satisfaction is also significant, implying that good behaviour makes people happier – seeking pleasure for doing well that is blessed and approved by Allah (S.W.T).

Two limitations are available for future studies. First, this study included only Malaysians in East Malaysia, suggesting that further testing of the proposed model should be conducted across different geographies to determine the generalisability of this study’s findings. Second, this study’s contributions are narrowed down to the factors examined. These limitations, however, provide directions for further future research.

The results provide directions to bank managers to effectively manage Islamic home financing services for the benefit of their customers. Islamic home financing products tend to be used by consumers if the patronage factors investigated are considered more profoundly.

This study examines the behaviour of consumers of Islamic home financing using the proposed framework derived from TiCB.