IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gei/jnlfer/v5y2020i1p30-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Blockchain Based Smart Sukuk as Shariah Compliant Investment Avenues for Islamic Financial Institutions in Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Iftikhar, Irum Saba

    (Institute of Business Administration)

Abstract

The biggest challenge for the Islamic banking industry in Pakistan is the scarcity of Shariah-compliant investment instruments and the absence of a lender of last resort (LOLR) facility for Islamic banks. Due to the problem of surplus liquidity, returns for Islamic banks in Pakistan are lower as compared to the conventional counterparts putting them at a competitive disadvantage with respect to their competitor conventional banks. Sukuk issuance is associated with a high cost of issuance and legal complexity, problems that could be solved by the application of blockchain technology. With the advent of cryptocurrency and developments around blockchain, technology experts, industry professionals along with Shariah scholars have been working to introduce FinTech in Shariah-compliant financing products and services. This research applies a qualitative approach. The study relies on primary data from interviews and secondary data from published sources, academic journals, government and private-sector reports, and public domain including newspaper articles, and websites. Interviews are conducted from blockchain technology experts along with banking \& commerce industry professionals. This study highlights financial instability, lack of financial education and absence of political will being the main reasons for low Sukuk issuance in Pakistan. This study proposes a low-cost smart Sukuk structure to address the liquidity problem of the Islamic banking industry in Pakistan. It is found that smart Sukuk issuance and transaction fees are much lower than the current Sukuk issuances and are expected to be more secure and marketable internationally. Blockchain-based smart Sukuk are practicable to solve the problem of standardization and huge issuance and maintenance cost for the Sukuk industry. The proposed structure could be adopted by governments and organizations to issue Sukuk promising transparent, economical, efficient, and reliable business transactions for both parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Iftikhar, Irum Saba, 2020. "Blockchain Based Smart Sukuk as Shariah Compliant Investment Avenues for Islamic Financial Institutions in Pakistan," Journal of Finance and Economics Research, Geist Science, Iqra University, Faculty of Business Administration, vol. 5(1), pages 30-45, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gei:jnlfer:v:5:y:2020:i:1:p:30-45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://geistscience.com/JFER/Issue1-20/Article5/JFER2005103.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mamoru Nagano, 2016. "Who issues Sukuk and when?: An analysis of the determinants of Islamic bond issuance," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 45-55, November.
    2. Ye Guo & Chen Liang, 2016. "Blockchain application and outlook in the banking industry," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 1-12, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhu Yongjie, 2023. "Enterprise life cycle, financial technology and digital transformation of banks—Evidence from China," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 486-500, September.
    2. Ilya Ivaninskiy & Irina Ivashkovskaya & Joseph A. McCahery, 2023. "Does digitalization mitigate or intensify the principal-agent conflict in a firm?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 27(3), pages 695-725, September.
    3. Bindu K. Nambiar & Kartikeya Bolar, 2023. "Factors influencing customer preference of cardless technology over the card for cash withdrawals: an extended technology acceptance model," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(1), pages 58-73, March.
    4. Alper Ozpinar, 2023. "A Hyper-Integrated Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to Gamification and Carbon Market Enterprise Architecture Framework for Sustainable Environment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-22, March.
    5. Łukasz Wyciślik & Elżbieta Marcinkowska, 2020. "Tracking of Clinical Documentation Based on the Blockchain Technology—A Polish Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-14, November.
    6. Sujata Seshadrinathan & Shalini Chandra, 2025. "Trusting the trustless blockchain for its adoption in accounting: theorizing the mediating role of technology-organization-environment framework," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 11(1), pages 1-39, December.
    7. Frédéric A Hayek & Pascal Lafourcade & Ariane Tichit, 2023. "Generic and Universal Local Cryptocurrency: LCoin," Post-Print hal-04176704, HAL.
    8. Gang Kou & Özlem Olgu Akdeniz & Hasan Dinçer & Serhat Yüksel, 2021. "Fintech investments in European banks: a hybrid IT2 fuzzy multidimensional decision-making approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, December.
    9. Ammar AL-Ashmori & P. D. D. Dominic & Narinderjit Singh Sawaran Singh, 2022. "Items and Constructs of Blockchain Adoption in Software Development Industry: Experts Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-18, August.
    10. Kouhizadeh, Mahtab & Saberi, Sara & Sarkis, Joseph, 2021. "Blockchain technology and the sustainable supply chain: Theoretically exploring adoption barriers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    11. Kiarash Shamsi & Mohammad Javad Shayegan & Mueen Uddin & Chin-Ling Chen, 2022. "A Fair Method for Distributing Collective Assets in the Stellar Blockchain Financial Network," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-14, April.
    12. Ashraf, Dawood & Rizwan, Muhammad Suhail & Azmat, Saad, 2018. "The Role of Ownership and Governance Mechanism in Sukuk Financing by Malaysian Firms: An Application of A Double Selection Model," Working Papers 2018-2, The Islamic Research and Teaching Institute (IRTI).
    13. Han, Hongdan & Shiwakoti, Radha K. & Jarvis, Robin & Mordi, Chima & Botchie, David, 2023. "Accounting and auditing with blockchain technology and artificial Intelligence: A literature review," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    14. J. Leon Zhao & Shaokun Fan & Jiaqi Yan, 2016. "Overview of business innovations and research opportunities in blockchain and introduction to the special issue," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 1-7, December.
    15. Liurui Deng & Yongbin Lv & Ye Liu & Yiwen Zhao, 2021. "Impact of Fintech on Bank Risk-Taking: Evidence from China," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-27, May.
    16. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Bariviera, Aurelio F. & López, Óscar G., 2022. "The link between cryptocurrencies and Google Trends attention," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    17. Marat Rashitovich Safiullin & Leonid Alekseevich Elshin & Alia Aidarovna Abdukaeva & Maxim Vladimirovich Savushkin, 2020. "A Formalized Assessment of the Scenario Development of the National Economy in the Context of the Penetration of Blockchain Technologies Into the Financial Sector of Transactions," International Journal of Financial Research, International Journal of Financial Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 11(5), pages 199-204, October.
    18. Laxman Tandan & Ananta Raj Kafle & Khageshyor Khanal, 2022. "An Econometric Analysis on Interest Rate Reforms and Financial Deepening," International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, vol. 12(3), pages 3-22.
    19. Lamprini Zarpala & Fran Casino, 2021. "A blockchain-based forensic model for financial crime investigation: the embezzlement scenario," Digital Finance, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 301-332, December.
    20. Christian Zeiß & Myriam Schaschek & Lisa Straub & Christoph Tomitza & Axel Winkelmann, 2024. "Re-intermediation of the crypto asset ecosystem by banks: An empirical study on acceptance drivers among the populace," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 34(1), pages 1-24, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gei:jnlfer:v:5:y:2020:i:1:p:30-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Imtiaz ARIF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://geistscience.com/JFER/index.php .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.