Articles

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Malaysia's Bank

Whereas conventional banks are grounded in the idea of utility, Islamic banks are grounded in the shari`a. The article discusses a self-administered survey conducted in 3 Jordan cities to guage the attitudes of businessmen, households of middle and professional classes, and traders regarding Islamic banks. Through univariate and multivariate statistical analysis, it was concluded that interpersonal relations and human services drew people to Islamic banks.

The authors describe the landscape of banking in Saudi Arabia. The regulatory agency, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, does not seem likely to demand that all banking in the land be Islamic. This is a source of dispute in the country, for the Hanbali School of thought applied in the kingdom considers dealing with interest to be a sin. Nonetheless, banks in the kingdom do charge interest.

A self-administered survey was conducted of Jordanian bank customers in which 700 responses were analyzed through univariate and multivariate statistical methods. The survey was meant to study the attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of customers using conventional and Islamic banks. It was found in the end that customers did not distinguish between services offered by Islamic banks and services offered by conventional banks. Found to be most useful to consumers were the services of foreign exchange, safety deposit boxes, night depository, and traveler's checks.

Kuwaiti banking has risen and fallen with the rest of the Gulf region. Both Kuwait as a nation and its banking system are relatively young. Commercial banks are dominant in a money holding and financing industry composed of government agencies, specialized banks, investment companies, and one Islamic bank.

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Over the last forty years, the economic development of Iran may be seen as a tremendous mass of hopefulness that ultimately failed to materialize. After the national bourgeoisie was removed from power in 1953 and a foreign capitalist class took over, the path of underdevelopment was the one trodden down. There is now no going back. Under the rule of the shah, there was much growth but also underdevelopment. Income distribution was increasingly less equitable. There were growing discrepencies between rural and urban standards of living.

Econometrics can show the demand for money in the Pakistani economy from the period 1959-1960 and 1986-1987. The money demand function, specified in logarithmic form, was stable between both periods, but became unstable thereafter. The instability may have been caused by the institutional changes in the banking sector and changes in the exchange rate environment caused by the delinking of the Pakistani rupee from the US dollar.

The author strongly suggests that all international managers ought to seek knowledge concerning Islamic economics and Islamic banking. There are over 100 Islamic banking institutions and