Islamic financial literacy has been recognised as an important tool to increase inclusiveness. To date however, the constructs for Islamic financial literacy has not been adequately examined even though they have been calls for such attempt in the literature. Thus, this paper aims to develop the constructs for Islamic financial literacy and its determinants. Structured questionnaires were distributed to 200 students of Universiti Utara Malaysia to determine the level of Islamic financial literacy. The data are quantitatively analyzed through an exploratory factor analysis using SPSS programme. The results show that 4 out of 11 measures failed to load reliably in Islamic financial literacy construct. Specifically, religiosity was found to exhibit the highest variance followed by hopelessness and financial satisfaction. This paper enables the community and researchers to expand the knowledge in the area of Islamic financial literacy by providing a validated constructs to assess the level of Islamic financial literacy.

This paper aims to examine the relationship of underlying principles, religiosity, perception, training and products' knowledge of Islamic banking employees. A survey approach has been adopted to investigateproducts' knowledge of Islamic Banking employees. The data for this study are collected via structured questionnaires which are completed by 150 staff of Islamic banking operated in northern part of Malaysia. The data are then quantitatively analyzed using SPSS program. The findings show a high significantly positive correlation between product knowledge andunderlying principles followed by training, religiosity and perception. However, further analysis revealed only underlying principles and training give a significant and positive impact on product knowledge of Islamic banking employees. The result implied that the management side of Islamic banking sector need to inculcate their staff with Islamic knowledge. Courses and training programs can be offered to Islamic banking employees to instilling skill in practicing Islamic banking products. Besides, regular seminars and workshops are also can help in achieving these aims. The paper reports a new finding on the area of product knowledge of Islamic banking employees. Valid constructs had been developed in this study and a new variable i.e. underlying principles of Islamic knowledge was utilized and it was found significant influence on product knowledge.

Since the fall of Somalia’s central government in 1991, Somalia experienced an intractable civil war that not only undermined and devastated much of the nations’ social life but also, led to a massive collapse of the country’s financial sector. Nearly a quarter century, Somalia has no functioning financial system due to the conflict and political mayhem. Such circumstances prevented Somalia from developing an effective and coherent financial system. Following the collapse of the country’s institutions, the only financial system that existed during these turbulent times were Xawaalads or money transfer operators mostly founded by Somali diasporas migrated to many countries around the world due to the country’s instability. Another type of informal financial service emerged during the conflict was mobile money or mobile banking operated by giant telecommunication companies in the country. Following the formation of Somalia’s federal government in 2012 and the return of relative normalcy, the major money transfer companies converted to full banking institutions and sought a license from the central bank as full-fledged Islamic financial banks. The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of the Islamic banking industry, opportunities and challenges ahead. The paper relied on secondary data obtained from textbooks, journals, newspapers and reports. The study found that Islamic banks in Somalia have potential opportunities but face unique challenges due to the effects of the civil war. The paper also postulates some recommendations for the policymakers to deal with the challenges facing the Islamic banks in Somalia.

The talent crunch and consequent war of talent poses serious risk for the success and sustainability of industries all over the globe. This is most especially so in the Malaysian Islamic finance industry which has been witnessing huge talent gap and fierce competition for limited talent. This study, unlike past research, employs discrete choice conjoint analysis, a new quantitative method to provide information on the relative importance of identified job and organisation attributes in determining the job preference or choice of graduate talents of Insaniah university college Malaysia. All identified job and organisation attributes were found to positively significant in determining job choice of talents. Job security is relatively the most preferred attribute and donation to charity is the least preferred. Organization reputation attributes such as training and development which are internal reputation attributes are found to be relatively very important. In contrast, donation to charity, an external corporate reputation attribute, is found to be least relatively important. This study results strongly suggest that policy makers in Malaysian Islamic finance industry should incorporate the preferred attributes in the employee value proposition to attract the needed pool of talent.