Islamic finance is a fast growing activity in world markets. This paper provides a survey on Islamic Finance in SSA. Ongoing activities include Islamic banking, sukuk issuances (to finance infrastructure projects), Takaful (insurance), and microfinance. While not yet significant in most...

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is an established relationship marketing-centric approach to evaluating performance: based upon the significance of a customer, and what resources should be allocated towards maintaining relations - beyond short-term transactional views. The conceptual argument...

Islamic banks today are criticised by many for not being different from conventional banks owing to their indulgence in non bona fide transactions. The liquidity management practice of commodity Murabaha is one of the most controversial. Islamic banks resort to Tawarruq-based commodity Murabaha...

This paper investigates the market structure and the degree of concentration of Islamic banking industry. This paper reports an empirical assessment of competitive conditions among the Arab GCC banking industry during the years of 2005-2010. We opt for the methodology as proposed by Panzar and...

Islamic banking has achieved exceptional growth in the last two decades and has been able to sustain it even during the recession and afterwards. In this paper, we highlight that lack of flexible financing options, incomplete product mix, scale diseconomies, contractual frictions and constraints...

The SDN discusses the main policy issues and challenges in building an inclusive and safe Islamic finance industry, with emphasis on Islamic banking and Sukuk markets. To this end, it discuses why Islamic finance matters, taking into account its recent and prospective growth; and, its potential...

Islamic finance has come of age. Islamic banking and finance have been growing at a very fast rate, despite apparent serious setbacks (such as interruption of payments in Abu Dhabi in 2009, the Great Recession in Western countries between 2008 and 2010, and the recent turmoil in Middle Eastern...

Islamic finance is a set of financial institutions representing a connected financial architecture that works based on prescribed Shari’ah principles. Growth in the industry has been stellar, but, certain principles, the strategic direction and the practices do not warrant celebration yet....

At present in line with shariah principles several Islamic financial institutions are engaged in product development activities globally to cater the needs of a wide range of parties. However, considering the essentiality for these institutions to innovate and operate within the ambits of...

The relative financial strength of Islamic banks is assessed empirically based on evidence covering individual Islamic and commercial banks in 18 banking systems with a substantial presence of Islamic banking. We find that (i) small Islamic banks tend to be financially stronger than small...