Finance as Worship or A Commercial Funding: Empirical Evidence from Islamic Banking Industry of Pakistan

Abstract

The present study aims to determine the perception of general public well versed with the conventional education regarding the contemporary Islamic banking & finance as to whether they consider Islamic banking finance as worship or a commercial funding. A total of 644 questionnaires were distributed to collect the data. Independent sample t-test through SPSS was used to estimate the results. The findings revealed that the mean values of independent sample t-test of the Islamic bankers, conventional bankers, teaching faculty and non-finance industry professionals are 6.07, 4.91, 4.86 and 5.07 respectively. As the mean values of conventional bankers, teaching faculty and non-finance industry professionals are less than that of benchmark level of 6.0. Therefore, the study recommends authorities to formulate policies and initiate Islamic banking awareness programs both at the micro & macro levels.