Islamic banking and finance is making its mark alongside conventional banking and is not restricted to Islamic countries as it once was.

Organisation of the Islamic Conference Scholar Mr Saad Azmat, a PhD student from Monash University’s Caulfield campus in Melbourne, Australia, recently presented a seminar on Islamic Finance at Monash University Sunway campus.

Entitled ‘Challenges and opportunities for the Islamic finance industry’, Mr Saad shed some light on some of the challenges faced by the Islamic finance industry in Australia.

Speaking to a group of academics from the School of Business, the active researcher, who has authored numerous papers on Islamic finance, said that there is a gap of proper understanding of Islamic finance for both practitioners and customers.

“One of the biggest challenges is that practitioners are hired with conventional banking experience, but they have little or no understanding of Islamic law,” Mr Saad said.

“Thus, understanding of Islamic law is required, but many books on Islamic law are not available in English. The academic curriculum on Islamic law of contract definitely needs significant improvement,” he added. 

On the other hand, Mr Saad explained that while they are proficient in Islamic knowledge and law, “Shariah advisers need to be trained in conventional law, economics and banking and finance.”

Mr Saad saw these challenges as opportunities for better undergraduate courses in Islamic law and Islamic finance to be introduced in universities, and for existing Islamic curriculum to be fine-tuned.

Mr Saad said: “Proper text books should be designed for an international audience and a standardised teaching style should be introduced. This opens up a whole new field for academics of different levels to be a part of.”

“This also means a new area of research opportunities for finance academics, as it is important to be backed up by quality research publications on Islamic finance in credible journals,” he added. 

Mr Saad is currently the Head of Product Development and Director of Consultancy of Barakah Group, a company aimed at providing Shariah compliant products to the Australian market.

He explains further that for the uniqueness of Islamic Finance to be preserved, it shouldn’t replicate conventional finance. Instead, the focus should shift to the development and improvement of its Shariah-compliant products and such as its reliance on equity type instruments.