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Purpose This paper aims to explain the “murabaha syndrome” of Islamic banks. It further attempts to offer alternatives for the expansion of profit and loss sharing (PLS)-based financing. Design/methodology/approach Audited financial statements of 18 Islamic banks in the GCC countries are analyzed to assess the financing structures of banks. Moreover, additional data about financing pattern of Islamic banks in other Muslim majority countries are collected from the Islamic finance literature. A comparative analysis is offered to examine the financing structures of Islamic banks. Findings The paper confirms murabaha (mark-up financing) concentration of Islamic banks. About 90 per cent of the total financing are concentrated on murabaha, which is the result of existing institutional underpinnings. Islamic banks would logically be involved with PLS-based financing only limitedly unless the current governing institutions are changed. Entrepreneurs’ financing needs based on PLS contracts should be catered by venture capital, whereas micro-finance enterprises can meet the demand for funds of marginal clients. Practical implications PLS investment in the portfolio of Islamic banks would result in higher risk and uncertainty. Ambiguity, or its equivalent uncertainty, is prohibited in Islam. This is a dilemma which the existing literature does not sufficiently explain. Originality/value Ideally, Islamic banks should practice PLS-based financing; otherwise, their raison d’être would be difficult to justify. Islamic finance literature does not shed sufficient analytical lights in explaining Islamic banks’ preference of mark-up financing to PLS-based financing. Moreover, strategies to ameliorate this condition have largely remained unexplored.

This study aims to compare environmental motives and performance of conventional and Islamic banks in Bangladesh. Green compliance index was developed based on the Bangladesh Bank (the central bank of Bangladesh) guidelines whereas information regarding governance variables is collected from the annual reports of 9 Islamic and 31 conventional banks. Results show Islamic banks are more environmentally friendly compared to their conventional counterparts. Board size is negatively related to green compliance whereas board independence and auditor's type do not have any significant influence on green compliance for both clusters of banks. Compliance with green banking policies enhances the reputation for Islamic banks and accountability and profitability for conventional banks. Results of this study provide useful information for regulatory authorities to formulate policies that are conducive to enhance bank's environmental performance.

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationship between capital risk and efficiency of Islamic and conventional banks operating in Bangladesh. In this pursuit, the research attempts to answer these questions: do inefficient banks assume more risk? Is there any major difference between Islamic and conventional banks in terms of efficiency and risk taking behavior? Design/methodology/approach – The study collects various bank-level data from the audited financial statements of Islamic and conventional banks for the period of 2001 to 2011. Collected data are analyzed using Stochastic Frontier Analysis for efficiency estimation and Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) approach for assessing the relationship between capital, risk, and efficiency. Findings – Analysis of data shows that conventional banks are more efficient in managing cost than Islamic banks. Moreover, the SUR results show that the relation between capital and efficiency are bidirectional and negative, whereas the relation between capital and risk is also bidirectional but positive for Islamic banks. On the other hand, risk and efficiency are positively related, and the result is bidirectional for conventional banks. Research limitations/implications – The research concentrates on private-commercial banks as proxy for conventional banks. State-owned banks including specialized banks and foreign commercial banks are excluded from the sample due to various anomalies in reporting of financial data. Practical implications – There is a lot of room for Islamic banks to increase productive efficiency because cost efficiency of Islamic banks is less than that of the conventional banks. This can be attributed to the relative small size of Islamic banks in Bangladesh. Because there exists a positive relationship between size and efficiency for Islamic banks, they can concentrate on increasing their size to capitalize on economies of scale. Moreover, the analysis shows that inefficient conventional banks assume higher risk which conforms to moral hazard hypothesis. Therefore, regulatory authorities should discourage banks from exercising such practice for the greater stability of the overall banking system in Bangladesh. Originality/value – A good number of studies is available in the existing literature that compares the performance of Islamic and conventional banks in the case of Bangladesh. However, very few studies are found that examine the relationship between capital, risk and efficiency. Therefore, the research is new for the selected area. As a result, the research is expected to contribute to the existing literature by providing new information.

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Purpose -This paper argues how Islamic altruism and reciprocity can enhance or drain the supply of Islamic equity finance. The paper also analyzes the feasibility of Islamic equity finance through the lens of new institutional economics (NIE) and transaction cost economics (TCE). Design/methodology/approach -One of the salient contributions by NIE is to support the proposition that effective contracting depends greatly on institutions in terms of "rules that constrain economic behavior", including informal or intangible institutions, such as religion, culture and customary practices. This paper draws on the theoretical contributions of the NIE and TCE and applies some of these contributions to an analysis of general altruism and reciprocity in Islamic economies. Findings -It is said that solutions based on the Islamic injunctions (collectively termed as spiritual quotient) could serve to mitigate agency risks. However, in theory, the Muslim principal (particularly fund providers) is exposed to higher agency risk unless appropriate rules of protecting the right of the principal (or of punishing the agent when its opportunistic behavior is revealed) are devised, because the Muslim fund providers have the divine obligation to share risks in enterprise under the profit-loss sharing (PLS) scheme as well as to share a portion of income with the poor or those entrepreneurs who face difficulties in fund-raising. Originality/value -Many scholars refer to the lack of the "formal" institutions that hinder the sound development of Islamic venture capital (VC). This paper contributes to shedding an analytical light on the unique feature of the Muslims' "informal" constraints which make them hesitate to invest in Islamic VC. To develop the Islamic VC market, this paper provides a theoretical background to suggest how important it would be for the national financial system to devise some tangible provisions by installing enterprise-friendly regulations as well as adequate incentive and protection mechanisms consistent with Islamic principles.