Asymmetric Impact of Oil Prices and Stock Prices on Bank’s Profitability: Evidence from Saudi Islamic Banks

The soundness of financial institutions including banks depends on both internal factors and external factors. The profitability of the banks largely affected by external shocks like oil prices and stock prices. As an oil-exporting country, Saudi economy particularly its banking sector largely rely on the oil prices. This study examines the asymmetric impact of oil prices and stock prices on Saudi Islamic banks’ profitability for the period 2000-2020. Two Saudi Islamic banks’ profitability is examined by the factors like Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Assets (ROA) with the help of a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model. The estimated results are observed to be unbiased and robust. The results of this study show that OILP and STOCKP have significant role in determining the Islamic banks’ profitability in Saudi Arabia. Both higher oil prices and stock prices have positive influence on ROE and ROA of Saudi Islamic banks. This study suggest that development and efficiency of Saudi stock market is important and macroeconomic policy should support the country’s economic diversification. The management of Islamic banks need to focus on effective risk assessment and market monitoring tools to face the fluctuation of oil prices and their stock prices as these factors affect their profitability. Besides, Saudi Islamic banks need to diversify their investment portfolios into more productive and export oriented private sectors such as Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This strategic policy will enable Islamic banks to absorb any future shock of oil prices without affecting their profitability.

MICROFINANCE-ECONOMIC GROWTH NEXUS: A CASE STUDY ON GRAMEEN BANK IN BANGLADESH

Microfinance is one of the fastest growing sectors in Bangladesh and in many parts of the world. Over the last few decades, this sector has been supportive in achieving various socio-economic goals in Bangladesh. The country has made remarkable progress in sectors like education and health, and most importantly it has contributed significantly in poverty alleviation. Although the microfinance mostly concentrates at the micro level, it has direct effect on the macro economy.  A forefront Microfinance provider like Grameen Bank has been playing a key role for the socio-economic wellbeing of the people living in the rural areas as well as for the economic development of rural economy. This study aims to investigate the long run dynamic relationship among its loan financing and clients’ deposit and economic growth in Bangladesh. By considering annual time-series data of these variables, a widely used cointegration test and Granger’s causality test have been applied to examine the long run relationship among these variables. The result shows that both financing and depositing aspects of Grameen Bank have positive effect on economic growth of Bangladesh in the long run. It is recommended that Grameen Bank should allow its operations without any external pressure for the sake of sound economic growth of the country.

Asymmetric Impact of Oil Prices and Stock Prices on Bank’s Profitability: Evidence from Saudi Islamic Banks

The soundness of financial institutions including banks depends on both internal factors and external factors. The profitability of the banks largely affected by external shocks like oil prices and stock prices. As an oil-exporting country, Saudi economy particularly its banking sector largely rely on the oil prices. This study examines the asymmetric impact of oil prices and stock prices on Saudi Islamic banks’ profitability for the period 2000-2020. Two Saudi Islamic banks’ profitability is examined by the factors like Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Assets (ROA) with the help of a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model. The estimated results are observed to be unbiased and robust. The results of this study show that OILP and STOCKP have significant role in determining the Islamic banks’ profitability in Saudi Arabia. Both higher oil prices and stock prices have positive influence on ROE and ROA of Saudi Islamic banks. This study suggest that development and efficiency of Saudi stock market is important and macroeconomic policy should support the country’s economic diversification. The management of Islamic banks need to focus on effective risk assessment and market monitoring tools to face the fluctuation of oil prices and their stock prices as these factors affect their profitability. Besides, Saudi Islamic banks need to diversify their investment portfolios into more productive and export oriented private sectors such as Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This strategic policy will enable Islamic banks to absorb any future shock of oil prices without affecting their profitability

Effects of macroeconomic variables on stock prices in Malaysia: an approach of error correction model

This paper attempts to examine the short-run and long-run causal relationship between Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) and selected macroeconomic variables namely inflation, money supply and nominal effective exchange rate during the pre and post crisis period from 1987 until 1995 and from 1999 until 2007 by using monthly data. The methodology used in this study is time series econometric techniques i.e. the unit root test, cointegration test, error correction model (ECM), variance decomposition and impulse response function. The findings show that there is cointegration between stock prices and macroeconomic variables. The results suggest that inflation, money supply and exchange rate seem to significantly affect the KLCI. These variables considered to be emphasized as the policy instruments by the government in order to stabilize stock prices

Efficiency measurement of Islamic and conventional banks in Saudi Arabia:an empirical and comparative analysis

Saudi Arabia, beside Malaysia and many other Muslim countries, is one of those countries where Islamic and conventional banking operate in parallel. Over the last decade, the country’s banking industry is growing at rapid pace that accounts for the largest share in GCC. The present study measures and compares the performance of Saudi conventional and Islamic banking industry and identifies the areas where the strategic measures are required to improve the banking performance. It applies non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for the data from 2008-2016 of Saudi banking industry and provides comprehensive empirical results at individual bank vis-a-vis industry levels. The empirical results demonstrate a mix trend among the banks in achieving technical, pure technical and scale efficiency. It is observed that with the common pledge to expanding market share and performance, both conventional and Islamic banks have been successful in improving their levels of efficiency. At individual bank level, Al-Rajhi is the only bank that has achieved the highest score in terms of technical, pure technical and scale efficiency, while in the conventional banking group, both Saudi Hollandi and National Commercial banks are found on the top position. Despite the growth of incomes and deposits of entire banking industry in Saudi Arabia, this study particularly recommends for the Islamic banks to redirect their short term and long-term marketing strategies and to focus on improving their management skills at the branch level

Determining the relative importance of quality factors for crowdfunding platforms

A crowdfunding platform provides a facility for anyone with internet access to transmit an idea to a social network with the goal of gathering funding for their works or projects. A quality crowdfunding platform acts as an indicator of the donors’ ability to provide funds to the projects. In the existing literature on the quality factors of crowdfunding platforms, no systematic approach has been applied to prioritize these quality factors. The task of identifying the quality factors of a crowdfunding platform has been absent in the existing literature. The aim of this study is to use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to identify and rank the relative weights of the quality factors of crowdfunding platforms. The results show that ‘functionality’ emerged as the most crucial criterion. The research findings also provide insightful information to crowdfunding platform providers so that they may improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their platforms

Modelling customers’ loyalty towards adopting Islamic mobile banking services

This study aims to find important factors of Malaysian Islamic banking customers’ loyalty or continuance intention to use Islamic mobile banking services. A total number of 250 customers of has participated in this research. Based on findings, continuance intention of using Islamic mobile banking services was found to be depended on usability of mobile banking services, customer service provided by Islamic banks towards mobile banking services, customer satisfaction on mobile banking services and trust of customers towards mobile banking services. In addition, mediating effect of Islamic mobile banking services continuance adoption significantly influenced by customer satisfaction and trust. By understanding these continuance intention factors among the customers, it would help the industry player particularly Islamic banking to plan and strategize appropriate policies, and support necessary programmes on diversifying and promoting financial transaction using mobile banking services among their existing and potential customers

Factors affecting investors’ intention to invest in a peer-to peer lending platform in Malaysia: an extended technology acceptance model

There has been significant growth in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms in recent years, given the advancement of information and online technologies. Because this type of platform is gaining in importance and popularity, it becomes necessary to examine the factors that influence the behavioral intention of investors to invest in a P2P lending platform. Based on an extended technology acceptance model and using a structured survey questionnaire, this study examines the factors that influence retail investors to invest in a P2P lending platform in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The results show that intention to invest is mainly influenced or driven by trust. Other variables, namely perceived risk, perceived ease of use, and security, are found to have no impact on investors’ decisions. The study findings provide managerial implications and theoretical contributions

Modeling the Demand for Islamic Microfinance Services: An Application of PLS-SEM Approach

The access to capital is very crucial for ensuring the financial sustainability of microfinance clients. It is also equally important to determine the demand for microfinance services among the clients. This study aims to identify the factors affecting the demand for Islamic microfinance (IsMF) services among the women micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia. This study has collected a total of 250 samples from the field survey on women micro-entrepreneurs who are also the clients of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM). In addition, Partial Least Squares (PLS) method used to identify the potential factors (4As) i.e., affordability, accessibility, adequacy and awareness affecting the demand for IsMF. The results show that only “accessibility” has significant and positive relation with the demand for IsMF. Besides, the measurements items of accessibility such as distance of IsMF institution, collateral requirement, guarantor requirement, application procedure and process, repayment method, service efficiency, advise and consultation, and number of IsMF centers are the key factors affecting the demand for IsMF services in Malaysia. This paper provides some insights for the policy makers of Islamic microfinance and recommends that IsMF providers should take accessibility factor into greater consideration for the economic upliftment of women in microenterprises in Malaysi

Electricity Consumption and Economic Growth: A Revisit Study of Their Causality in Malaysia

The role of electricity towards the economy becomes crucial in many countries including in Malaysia. It becomes necessary to investigate whether electricity consumption contributes to economic growth in order to make appropriate energy policies. The purpose of this research is to examine the long run and causal relationships between electric power consumption and real GDP. This paper applies to the error-correction model. The results indicate that electricity consumption has a positive impact on economic growth. Besides that, there was unidirectional Granger causality running from electricity consumption to real GDP but not vice versa. This paper suggests that Malaysia is becoming an energy-dependent country. The government should emphasize on formulating energy strategies so as to avoid adverse effects on economic growth