Title: Growth of Islamic banking in GCC: journey and beyond

Authors: Aqila Rafiuddin; Zafar Alam

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus, International Academic City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates ' Al Ghurair University, International Academic City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Abstract: This study examines and evaluates the growth of Islamic banking in the GCC member countries. It presents an overview of the growth in each decade since its institutional inception in 1963, followed by a detailed analysis of the growth during the period 2003-2012 with the identified variable for countries like Bahrain, Kuwait, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The main aims of this paper are to identify the reasons for the growth of Islamic banks in this region and to predict future growth of Islamic banks. Growth of banks is evaluated as dependent on independent variables like investing and financial activity, net loans, total assets, customer deposits, total income from investing and financing activities and operational profits. Additionally, ratio analysis is applied to assess the performance of banks with the application of important indicators on profitability, liquidity and risk.

Keywords: Islamic banking; GCC countries; Gulf Cooperation Council; ratio analysis; financial services; ROA; return on assets; ROE; return on equity; Islamic finance; Bahrain; Kuwait; Saudi Arabia; Qatar; United Arab Emirates; UAE; profitability; liquidity; risk.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFSM.2015.074147

International Journal of Financial Services Management, 2015 Vol.8 No.2, pp.99 - 109

Received: 06 Mar 2014
Accepted: 23 Jul 2014
Published online: 13 Jan 2016 *

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