In the 1970s of the 20 th century Islamic fi nancial system, based on religious principles started to emerge in Muslim countries. Among all the Islamic fi nancial institutions, banks emerged at the earliest. The reasons why they were established across the Muslim world were connected with the neo-revivalist movements among Muslim societies on one hand and the raising wealth of some Middle East countries on the other. One of the most infl uential movements was the Muslim Brotherhood, established in Al-Ismailijja (Egypt) in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood criticised interest-based fi nancial system in Egypt and other parts of the Muslim world and argued that since Islam provides its followers with a comprehensive ideological framework for all aspects of life, economic aff airs should be also included within that framework (Saeed, 1996). The opinions of Muslim Brotherhood and other Muslim movements found followers in the academic world as well as among market practitioners. But if it were not the wealth of the Gulf states, which was the result of oil crisis and the enormous increases in the oil prices, the development of Islamic fi nance probably would have been much slower. Almost all the Islamic banks that were established in the 1970s were partly or even totally funded by oil-linked wealth. Since then, IWONA SOBOL Dr.

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The foreign exchange market (FX market, forex) is the largest and the most liquid market of the world. Up to the late 1990s, the FX market was dominated by financial institutions and large corporations, which conducted FX transactions for hedging, speculation and arbitrage purposes. While these participants still constitute the most important part of the market, the role of retail investors has been increasing since the beginning of the 2000s. FX trading conducted by retail investors has become significant enough to be included in the FX market statistics, provided by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The data collected by BIS is the basis for the analysis conducted in this paper. The main objective of the study is to examine the factors which contributed to the emergence and development of the FX retail market as well as to analyse its size and structure in comparison with the total FX market.

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