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The purpose of this study is to understand and evaluate the roles and functions of the Sharīʿah committee (SC) of Islamic banks (IBs) in Malaysia and to recommend a resetting of the scope of responsibilities to enable the SC to effectively respond to current market needs.

A Likert-type survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to all available SC members through e-mails and online surveys as well as self-administered questionnaires. At the end of the survey, 87 useable questionnaires were collected from 161 SC members, representing a 54% response rate.

This study finds that most SC members have the necessary Sharīʿah qualification, and they are mostly academics with doctoral degrees. However, there is a noticeable lack of diversity in the composition of experts in the committees. Respondents indicate that their main functions are to ensure Sharīʿah compliance of bank operations and product offerings. This is of course consistent with their stated functions as outlined in the Bank Negara Malaysia's Sharīʿah Governance Policy Document (BNM, 2019). The study finds that SCs are not involved in product development, nor responsible for financial performance. Respondents indicate three ways to enhance the role of SCs: improving banking knowledge of the members, more engagement with the board of directors (BoDs) and broadening the functions of SCs.

This study highlights two policy implications. First, there is a strategic need for IBs to consider having a diversity of expertise in the SCs while maintaining the Sharīʿah experts as core members. Second, this study recommends a reset of the scope of duties of the SC to include three new areas: risk management, product development and financial performance.

This study evaluates the current functions of the SC of IBs in Malaysia and provides suggestions for improvement in the composition of the committee and in the scope of duties of SCs based on contemporary needs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dimensions of service quality (SERVQUAL) from the perspective of the customers and its relationships with perceived overall SERVQUAL in retail banking and also investigate the relationships between perceived overall SERVQUAL and customer trust, customer satisfaction, and bank reputation.

A survey questionnaire was constructed, and data were collected from 375 regular customers of local banks. The convenience sampling method was employed to collect data from existing customers of local banks operating in the Klang Valley area of Malaysia. Structural equation modelling was applied to analyse the data.

The results of the study indicate four key dimensions of SERVQUAL – tangibles, empathy, reliability and security, and internet banking – all of which are significantly and positively related to customers’ perceived overall SERVQUAL. Internet banking facilities are another significant determinant of the perceived overall SERVQUAL. The results are indicative of the strong and positive effect upon customer satisfaction, their trust in the bank, and, finally, a bank’s reputation.

This study has presented and tested empirical study of perceived overall SERVQUAL model in the banking industry, particularly in the Malaysian context. This research identified the dimensions of SERVQUAL (i.e. tangibles, empathy, reliability and security, and internet banking) that influence the overall perceived SERVQUAL, and how these overall perceptions will eventually influence customer trust, customer satisfaction, and bank reputation is valid and reliable in retail banking industry. This study, however, only focussed on the banking industry. Given the diversity of the service industry, these findings may have to be tested for the applicability to different service industries in future studies.

This research is useful to bank managers as it helps them improve SERVQUAL to protect and expand their respective market share in a highly competitive industry. Banks could utilise the results of this study to improve their service tangibility, empathy, reliability, and security, which will affect both customer trust and satisfaction, and enhance a bank’s reputation.

The findings of specific dimensions of SERVQUAL will contribute to customer perception of banks’ image and reputation, and strengthen trust and satisfaction. Moreover, assisting customers towards the understanding of how they should received high quality of services with regard to quality should be perceived as emphatic, reliable, secured and tangibility of service.

The findings of this study highlight the specific dimensionalities of SERVQUAL in influencing the perceived overall SERVQUAL. This study will increase the understanding on the impact of perceived overall SERVQUAL on consumer trust, customer satisfaction, and a bank’s reputation. Specifically, it reports an empirical study of a model of perceived overall SERVQUAL that simultaneously considers the direct effects of perceived overall SERVQUAL on customer trust, customer satisfaction and bank reputation.

This study aims to examine the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices on the financial performance of Malaysian Shariah-compliant companies over the period 2010–2017.

Panel regression models are used for this study to test the effect of ESG practices on the performance and the interaction variables to examine the impact of double ESG – Shariah screening on firms’ performance.

This study finds a positive relationship between ESG practices and financial performance, suggesting that ESG practices can enhance firm value. Additionally, the authors also find evidence that double ESG–Shariah screening can enhance the ESG relationship with performance. These results are consistent and robust to three proxies for financial performance and different estimation techniques.

The positive relationship between ESG practices and performance implies that firms should improve their ESG commitment as this is consistent with enhancing performance.

This study presents evidence concerning the impact of ESG practices on the financial performance of Shariah companies, thereby paving the way for further studies in sustainability investments in Shariah companies.

Foreign and local banks in Malaysia are competing in terms of skilled staff, innovative products and services, rendering quality services and customer satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the overall service quality and customer satisfaction of both foreign and local banks.

The data used to test the hypothesis were collected from 748 foreign and local bank customers in Malaysia. The research model was analysed using a structural equation modelling technique.

Results show that knowledge and staff competencies, as well as convenience of the bank is more significant for local bank customers while bank image and internet banking are important components for foreign bank customers. The results also reveal that foreign bank customers have higher satisfaction as compared to local bank customers.

No analysis is undertaken of any difference in the service quality dimensions between banks of different size. Further research on banking services could usefully test services quality dimensions across banks of different sizes.

The findings serve as a valuable reference for local banks understand service quality challenges they may face from foreign banks in this competitive industry. Findings suggest that, to provide high-quality services, financial institutions need to heighten customer satisfaction differentiation strategies.

The outcomes of this study enhance the knowledge on the performance of both local and foreign banks in Malaysia as well as customer satisfaction, which are invaluable to all bank managers and industry players in improving their services.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which conventional and Islamic bank fixed deposit rates can protect depositors against inflation in the Malaysia context.

Nominal interest rates are represented by commercial bank fixed deposit and investment bank fixed deposit rates. The authors use monthly data over the period 2000–2016. The authors apply the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing methodology to test the existence of long-run relationship between nominal rates and inflation, and the error-correction model to test for the short-run dynamics.

The results show that the nominal interest rate and inflation are cointegrated for all the data series. The evidence indicates that all the fixed deposit rates, for both conventional and Islamic banks are effective inflation hedges in the long-run thereby supporting the Fisher hypothesis. There is no difference in the inflation hedging ability between conventional bank rates and Islamic bank rates. However, the authors find no evidence of the short-run relationship between interest rates and inflation for either bank.

Bank regulators should be concerned on the similarities in behaviour towards inflation between conventional and Islamic rates, given that the deposit rates for both banks are supposedly set based on different premises. Bank customers, they should deposit their money for the long horizon in order to protect themselves against inflation. Depositors worrying about inflation should be indifferent between conventional or Islamic as both banks provide similar inflation hedging characteristics.

The novelty of this study is in using the bank fixed deposit rates to study the Fisher effect in an emerging market and in comparing the conventional and Islamic bank rates in terms of their inflation hedging ability.

The purpose of this paper is to determine of bank margins for conventional and Islamic banks in the dual banking system in Malaysia.

The study uses unbalanced panel data for 20 conventional banks and 16 Islamic banks over the period 2008-2014. The dynamic two-step GMM estimator technique introduced by Arellano and Bond (1991) is applied.

The results suggest that there are significant similarities with minor differences in terms of factors determining bank margins between conventional and Islamic banks in Malaysia. The margins for conventional banks are influenced by operating costs, efficiency, credit risk, degree of risk aversion, market share, size of operation, implicit interest payments and funding costs. For Islamic banks, the margin determinants are found to be operating costs, efficiency, credit risk, market share and implicit interest payments. This means that more factors influence the margins in conventional banks compared to Islamic banks. Although bank diversification activities have increased in recent years, their impact on bank margins is minimal.

The results suggest that improving operational costs, operational efficiency and credit risk management, and minimising implicit interest payments would be the best strategy to enhance the bank margins for both conventional and Islamic banks. The results also have important policy implications on the necessity to expand the size of Islamic banking in Malaysia.

There are relatively few studies concerning determinants of bank margins in emerging markets. The present study adds to the literature by presenting evidence from Malaysia, an emerging market with a dual banking system. This allows us to explore the similarities and differences between conventional and Islamic banks in Malaysia in respect of determinants of the margins.

This study aims to investigate how the Shariah committee in Islamic banks affects banks’ risk-taking behaviour and performance.

The sample is based on a panel data of 15 Islamic banks in Malaysia over the period 2007–2016. The generalised least squares random-effects method is used to study the relationship between the Shariah committee and bank risk-taking and performance.

The findings suggest that the number of committee members with Shariah qualification and the number of reputable members are negatively related to risk-taking while members with finance/banking qualifications are positively related. On the financial performance, evidence of two variables that are positively related to performance, namely, members with finance/banking qualification and reputable members was found. Female participation is weakly negatively related to risk-taking but unrelated to performance. Other variables, such as committee size, years of experience and frequency of meetings, are found to be unrelated to risk-taking and performance.

The paper points to two implications. First, the roles and functions of the Shariah committee should be revised to emphasise Shariah-compliance, as well as the business aspects of the banking operations. Second, the regulators should also look at the composition of the Shariah committee to ensure a diversity of expertise related to the banking business.

This paper extends the scope and coverage of previous studies by investigating the attributes of the Shariah committee, which could be important in influencing the risk-taking behaviour and performance of banks.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of the board and risk committee in respect of risk-taking in conventional and Islamic banks in Malaysia.

This study uses unbalanced panel data for 15 conventional and 14 Islamic banks over the period 2007–2016. The generalised least squares random effects technique is applied.

The evidence shows that independent directors and frequency of board meetings reduce risk-taking but that the number of directors with finance and banking experience and those with multiple directorships tend to increase risk-taking. The findings also indicate that the size of the risk committee, the number of directors on the risk committee and the appointment of a designated risk officer tends to reduce risk-taking in banks. By comparing conventional and Islamic banks, the findings show that Islamic banks have lower exposure to portfolio risk but higher insolvency risk.

The findings in this study suggest that the board and risk committee have an impact on bank risk-taking. The implications for management include having more independent directors, fewer directors with multiple board memberships and having an efficient risk committee in order to reduce risks. Regulators should look into the issue of multiple directorships as this is positively related to risk-taking. Islamic banks should expand their operations as our findings indicate that bigger banks are better able to manage risk.

This study covers bank governance and risk committee, which are crucial in influencing the risk-taking behaviour of conventional and Islamic banks.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the real interest rates, inflation and risk premium on the time deposit rates of banks in the dual banking system in Malaysia.

The data consists of 1-, 6- and 12-month average time deposit rates of conventional and Islamic banks over the period of January 2000 to June 2017. The cointegration methodologies are used to explore links between the time deposit rates, real rates, inflation and risk premium. The causality tests to test causality linkages between pairs of variables are also applied. The generalised forecast error variance decomposition based on the error correction model is conducted to analyse the impact of variables variation on the deposit rates.

The results show the presence of two cointegration vectors in the deposit rates, real rates, inflation and risk premium, for both conventional and Islamic bank rates. Causality tests reveal that deposit rates are caused by inflation and risk premium in a one-way causality. The results of variance decomposition highlight the importance of inflation and risk premium in explaining the variations in the bank deposit rates. For the conventional bank, inflation shocks play the most important role in explaining the movements of the deposit rates. In Islamic banks, the major determinant’s largest influence is the risk premium. Between the two bank rates, Islamic bank rates receive more influence from the explanatory variables in the long-run compared to conventional bank rates. The real rates have no noticeable effect on the variance of time deposit rates for both banks.

This study presents new evidence on the relationship between time deposit rates and the three explanatory variables, which are the real interest rates, inflation and risk premium, for both conventional and Islamic banks in Malaysia. The dual banking system allows exploring the similarities and differences between conventional and Islamic banks in Malaysia in terms of the linkages between the variables.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long‐term post‐acquisition share performance of Malaysian acquiring firms over the period 2000‐2004.

The authors use the event‐type methodology to analyse acquirer returns in relation to target status, method of payment and other firm characteristics, using both univariate and multivariate analyses. In total three performance measures are used to identify the long‐term share performance of acquiring firms: cumulative market‐adjusted abnormal returns, the buy‐and‐hold market‐adjusted and buy‐and‐hold matched‐sample abnormal returns.

The results show the existence of negative abnormal returns to acquirers over two‐ and three‐year periods after acquisition. The study also finds that acquirers of private targets earn negative returns, while acquirers of public targets earn insignificant returns. It is also found that under‐performance is limited to the small size acquirers and to large relative‐size acquisitions. Furthermore, the results indicate that acquirer's long‐term performance is not related to the method of payment and book‐to‐market ratio of the acquirer.

The Malaysian stock market is relatively small compared to the US and UK markets where most previous research has been carried out. The current study allows us to assess the robustness of the models and whether the findings in developed markets may be generalized to the smaller developing markets. This paper contributes to the present body of knowledge by offering evidence of acquirer's post‐acquisition performance from a developing market.