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This paper aims to draw upon existing debate over “financial sector rent” (bank rent) to analyze the current pattern of financing of Bangladeshi and Indonesian Islamic banks during the period of 2011 and 2015.

The empirical evidence through a comparative approach of analyzing the performance of Islamic banks with that of conventional banks in respective countries – two of the largest countries where majority of the population are Muslims – is drawn to demonstrate the objective.

While Islamic banks in Bangladesh are primarily concentrating on the murabaha (mark-up contract) mode of financing, some transactions under musharaka (partnership/equity-based contract) are observed in the Indonesian Islamic banking sector. This anomaly in Indonesia can be explained by the nature of their musharaka financing which is not of the purely “participatory” financing type. As a result, we can observe the quasi-murabaha syndrome in Indonesian Islamic banking sector. The concentration of asset-based financing including consumers’ financing (hire purchase) in the credit portfolio gives Islamic banks relatively higher Islamic bank rent opportunity for protecting their “franchise value” as Sharīʿah-compliant (Islamic law-compliant) lenders. However, Indonesian Islamic banks share a still infant Islamic banking market, and enjoy less rent opportunity under a severe competition with conventional banks.

The bank rent approach suggests that the syndrome observed both in Bangladesh and Indonesia can be ironically justifiable. Moreover, the mode of profit-and-loss sharing provides, in practice, an idea of the difficulty in managing the participatory financing embedded with high credit risk. Under this scenario, it is necessary for Islamic scholars and the regulatory authority to design an appropriate financial architecture, enabling Islamic banks to avail the benefit from a wider variety of Sharīʿah-based Islamic financing.

This paper expands the newly emerged concept of “Islamic bank rent” to make sense of the murabaha syndrome in Bangladesh and the quasi-murabaha syndrome in Indonesia. This approach also contributes to clarifying the unique risk and cost to be compensated with the spreads that Islamic banks are expected to earn.

The purpose of this paper is to propose the development of return forecasting model for mudharabah time deposit product in Islamic bank based on artificial neural networks (ANNs).

The analysis consists of two main elements. First element is the identification and selection of significant macroeconomic variables that determine return volatility of mudharabah time deposit in Indonesian Islamic bank industry. Second element is the implementation of appropriate ANNs model according to neural networks properties, and model evaluation based on simulated return predictions of mudharabah time deposit product in Bank Syariah Mandiri (RR‐BSM).

It is shown that monthly changes of return can be predicted quite well. The model provides a satisfactory result in forecasting RR‐BSM for 12 months ahead with 95.22 per cent accuracy. These results suggest that the ANNs can be applied as an adequate tool to help depositors in predicting future return of mudharabah time deposit product.

There is believed to be no other empirical study of Islamic banks that exclusively examines the utilization of ANNs to forecast time deposit return as well as return from other investment instruments.

Islamic financial technology (fintech), primarily peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, plays a substantial role in funding the unbanked population and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by offering streamlined financial services through online digital technology. In addition, Islamic fintech lending offers a promising return rate for individual and institutional investors, and therefore, it is considered a worthy investment alternative for diversification. This study aims to examine the determinants of project returns of SMEs on Islamic fintech lending platforms, taking the case study of one Islamic fintech lending platform registered at the Financial Service Authority in Indonesia.

Project return information and other information, such as the name of the SME raising fund, project duration, location, contract (aqad) and value (amount of money) to be raised, were extracted from the Islamic fintech lending platform. Furthermore, a regression analysis was performed using the completed projects as sample data (n = 122) on the platform.

The results show that the rate of return is significantly affected by project duration and type of Sharia-compliant contract. Location and project value are, however, found to be statistically insignificant. This study’s overall results align with the Signaling theory, indicating the importance of information for decision-making.

Due to limited access to the data, our study uses data from one of seven Islamic fintech lending platforms; thus, the study results may not be generalized to the general population.

The results suggest that investors aspiring to invest their funds in SME projects on Islamic fintech lending platforms should consider the project duration and contractual agreement since these factors significantly influence the return. Additionally, society may consider the Islamic fintech lending platform a viable investment instrument since its return rate follows the risk-return principle in classical and established finance theories. That is why Islamic fintech lending platforms are competitive compared to the more established ones, such as the Islamic stock market.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first study using an empirical approach to reveal the project return determinants of SMEs on Islamic fintech lending platform.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of product knowledge, perceived quality, perceived risk and perceived value on customers’ intention to invest in Islamic Banks. This study specifically examines an Islamic bank’s term deposits.

Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data collected from 217 customers of an Islamic bank in Indonesia using an online survey.

This study highlights the central and dual roles of perceived risk as both the independent and the intervening variable that mediates the relationship between product knowledge and Muslim customer intention to invest in an Islamic bank’s term deposits.

This study only investigates term deposits as one type of investment in Islamic banks. This study contributes to the literature by examining the role of product knowledge, perceived quality, perceived risk and perceived value on Muslim customer intention to invest in Islamic term deposits.

The results of this study highlight the requirement for Islamic banks to educate customers to improve the depositors’ product knowledge because Muslim customers’ risk and value perception and intention are strongly influenced by product knowledge.

The investigation of perceived risk is particularly relevant for Islamic financial products because of the inherent nature of risk sharing in Islamic finance. This study investigates the role of product knowledge in influencing the Muslim customers’ perception of risk, quality, value and their intention to invest in Islamic bank term deposits. Ideally, the profit loss sharing concept (PLS) should be applied; however, in this context, revenue sharing is applied because of Indonesia’s central bank regulation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of brand familiarity and profit-sharing rate on Muslim customers’ brand trust, perceived financial risk, perceived value and intention to invest in an Islamic bank.

A between-subjects experimental design was applied in the study. Six experiments involving two brand familiarity levels and three profit-sharing rates were conducted using a total of 217 samples. Randomization was applied in the study, which generated unequal sample sizes for each group of experiments.

The findings of this experimental study demonstrated that Muslim customers’ familiarity with the bank’s brand has a significant impact on their brand trust and intention to invest in an Islamic bank. The study also found that the profit-sharing rate has a significant impact on the perceived value both with and without interaction with brand familiarity.

The current study applies an independent measured design or a between-subjects experimental design, that resulted in unequal sample sizes. In addition, the study also does not control for the types of bank accounts owned by respondents. The design may invite the presence of confounding variables that exist due to individual differences and environmental variables.

The results show that Islamic bank managers should care about the brand familiarity issue, which strongly influences customers’ brand trust and customer intention to invest in an Islamic bank. In addition, Islamic bank managers should pay attention to the profit-sharing rate given to customers, as it interacts with brand familiarity in influencing customers’ perceived value.

This study examined the impact of brand familiarity and profit-sharing rate on Muslim consumers’ brand trust, perceived risk, perceived value and intention to save in an Islamic bank. The paper provides a shred of empirical evidence to the theoretical relationship between the subjective and objective cues that influence the formation of customers’ trust, perceived financial risk, perceived value and intention in the Islamic bank context.