Islamic Banks in Malaysia

1320 Words3 Pages

Several financial and economic crisis including the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and recent crisis; subprime mortgage crisis has triggered financial instability all over the world. The conditions in the global financial system has deteriorated sharply as the idiosyncratic funding and asset liquidity tighten and unexpected-larger losses associated with sub-prime related portfolios have weaken the balance sheet of global financial institutions. Furthermore, these disruptions in the financial markets also causing constraint to the flow of credit to household including families and to the business entity. Household balance sheets have come under pressure to arising job losses, falling net worth, and tight credit conditions (IMF, Global Financial Stability Report, April, 2009). Therefore, many governments have taken initiatives and scale up intervention measures in attempts to restore the financial stability in their financial system.

Reflecting the impact of the crises and excessive capital particularly in petrodollar country including the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) , therefore it provides an opportunity for Islamic financial institutions (IFS) globally including Islamic banks to grow significantly in recent years. For example, shariah -compliant assets rose by 28.6 percent in 2009, to $822 billion dollar from $639 billion dollar in 2008 (The Banker, November 2009). According to Moody’s, 2009, Islamic banking assets and assets under management are expected to reach USD 1 trillion by 2010. In addition, potential market for this system is worth at least USD 5 trillion.

IFS including Islamic banking has been incepted globally about three decades ago, and the number has grew from one in one country in 1975 to over 300 instituti...

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... Islamic banks in Malaysia for the period of 2000 to 2008. Islamic banks in this study consist of only full-fledged Islamic banks which operated under the Islamic Banking Act 1983 while commercial banks are operated under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (BAFIA) 1989. Commercial bank terms will be used widely and interchange with conventional bank concept in the research.

1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

The structure of the study is as follows. Chapter 2 provides literature review of the study. Chapter 3 discusses overview of the specifics of Islamic banking from analytical and prudential perspectives. Chapter 4 explains the theoretical framework, methodology, and the variables and data used in the study. Section 5 presents the analysis and empirical results. Section 6 summarizes the conclusion, policy implication and suggests topics for further research.

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