The transitional economies of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) have enjoyed an extraordinary period of growth and poverty reduction between 2000 and 2007 and this occurred in concomitance with significant increases in private and public transfers to households. The paper assesses the relative...

Part I. Qard hasan: pure Islamic microfinance -- Part II. The predominance of murabaha -- Part III. Institutions providing a range of Islamic financing arrangement -- Institutions that also promote (some) profit and loss sharing