International Islamic Banking

The purpose of this exploratory and to some extent descriptive analysis is to highlight the Islamic banking & finance theory, and to explain the practical disparity all over the Muslim Umma along with commonalities of Islamic banking in them. Islamic banking has been now become a value proposition which transcends cultures and will do speedily in next decades despite of cutting throat competition expected in global banking scenario. The size of Islamic Financial Industry has now reached size of US$ 250 Billion and its growing annually @ 15% per annum. Institutions like Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) and Islamic Finance Services Board (IFSB) have been formed. Due to these collective efforts, Islamic banking is now recognized by IMF,World Bank and Basel Committee. While, 27 Muslim countries including Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Brunei and Pakistan 15 non-Muslim countries including USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Africa and Australia has already adopted it, but in all these countries a lot of diversities lie over theory “ Shariah Principles” and their implementation as bank products/services. In such context our effort is expected to be fruitful for not only local but international policymakers and scholars to overcome these disparities and to really make it a value proposition which transcends cultures………