Islamic banking and finance: beyond comparison and investment opportunities

Abstract

Islamic finance as a field of research continues to be exciting and has been evolving with coverage that goes beyond mere comparison with conventional finance. With rapid development in Islamic banking to reach the status of being systematically important in many jurisdictions, the following questions seem pertinent: Should Islamic banking diversify to non-intermediation activities such that it can rival and become a truly alternative to conventional banking in the provision of banking services? How should Islamic banks structure their financing? And what are the financial and real impacts of Islamic banking? As for the Islamic stock markets, in light of on-going research and still inconclusive findings, investment opportunities provided by Shari’ah compliant stocks remain a central issue. The question is: what is the role of Islamic stocks in investment strategies especially from the lens of price discovery? Apart from these traditionally-focused Islamic finance areas, Islamic finance research starts to emphasize other equivalently important areas, among which include Islamic corporate finance and Islamic microfinance.