Economic and financial crises seem to occur with increased frequency. Indeed now most countries, including several advanced economies like the US, Europe and Japan, are in serious economic recession. Employment and business opportunities have been much dampened. Inflation seems to be soaring globally and nations are witnessing widening gaps in income and wealth distribution. Many of these advanced economies are also facing shrinking population sizes that translate into aging problems and labor shortages. On top of those, there are environmental issues, including global warming. All these, in turn, have caused regional and global political conflicts and turmoil. The Arab Spring and the sovereign debt problems faced by some European countries like Greece are examples of this. Sustainability of economics and environment is thus of paramount concern of today. This paper considers those problems and suggests Interest-free Gold-based Electronic Netting System (IGENS) as an effective way of injecting liquidity into the economy, practically free, that can spur business and employment while bringing about structural stability, inflation checked with both economic and environmental sustainability. Netting or muqassah is a transaction allowed in shari’ah and is practiced worldwide in different forms. Examples include the highly successful WIR Bank of Switzerland, various Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) and Bilateral and Multilateral Payment Arrangements between central banks.

Bank run is an important economic phenomenon which increasingly occurred in in modern banking system and potentially threatened banking stability as it could trigger a banking crisis. However, most studies related to bank run focus on the occurrence of bank run in conventional banking system. Very few of them discuss the bank run phenomenon under Islamic banking system or dual banking system where Islamic banks jointly operating with conventional banks. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze the determinants of bank run in the Indonesian Islamic banking industry by employing primary data from 256 customers of Indonesia Islamic banks in 2015 and by utilizing factor analysis and descriptive statistics. In theory, Islamic banks tend to be more resilient towards any macroeconomic or financial shocks as compared to conventional banks due to the nature of its asset-based and risk-sharing arrangement. However, the result exhibits that both psychological and fundamental factors (i.e. macroeconomics and bank fundamentals) strongly influence the behaviors of Islamic banking depositors to withdraw their funds, which might trigger the occurrence of bank runs in the country. Insider information, macroeconomic condition and bank fundamental factors are also shown to have the highest impacts among all variables. Hence, in the context of banking stability, the finding implies that Islamic banks are not completely immune to the impacts of macroeconomic shocks or financial crisis. As a country with a dual banking system, Indonesia had experienced several bank runs since 1990s. Therefore, the findings of the study should provide the policy makers important insight into research based-policy in order to attain financial stability as one of the main economic goals of the country.

The present study, grounded in theory of financial intermediation, provides new empirical evidence on comparison of bank stability measures of Islamic banks, conventional banks and other bank models in Indonesia. Specifically, 72 conventional banks, 4 Islamic banks, 3 conventional banks with Islamic subsidiaries and 2 subsidiary Islamic banks in Indonesia are considered, focusing on the sample period of 1999-2015. The study adopts z-score as a measure of bank stability, while a non-parametric multiple comparison analysis was used to test the significance of the differences in the bank stability of the different bank models, namely Islamic banks, conventional banks, Subsidiary Islamic banks and conventional banks with Islamic subsidiaries. The sample period is further divided into three sub-periods, namely, before the global financial crisis (1999-2006), during the global financial crisis (2007-2009) and after the global financial crisis (2010-2015) so as to gain more detail findings on the impact of the global financial crisis on the banks’ stability. The impact of local crisis periods (1999-2001) on bank stability of different bank models is also investigated. Findings of this study contribute towards extending the theory of financial intermediation through empirical works of stability of different banking models namely Islamic banks, conventional banks, Subsidiary banks and conventional banks with Islamic subsidiaries.

The establishment of Islamic banking institution all over the world is often related to the proclivity of muslims to live all aspects of their lives in accordance with the teachings of Islam. Islamic bank is one of the components in Islamic financial sector that plays very vital role to generate the growth of economics among muslim society. Indeed, Islamic bank was more robust to the financial crisis compared to the conventional banking institution. Cash waqf is a trust fund established with money to provide services to mankind in the name of Allah. The gifted capital then will be spent for all sorts of pious and social purposes inclusive for the financing and investment objectives. It is recognized that there is limited study in the area of cash waqf especially in the development of Islamic waqf bank (IWB). The main objective of this article is to analyze the possibility and obstacles in developing IWB in the mainstream Islamic financial institutions. The methodo-logy of research in this article is through a qualitative research based on interview with relevant officers in the Islamic banking, waqf, and academic sectors. The general finding in this article shows that IWB can apply cash waqf structure, whereby the cash waqf fund must be converted into fixed assets such as land and buildings. The rental income from the fixed assets and investments then can be channelled to waqf beneficiaries such as funding students’ education, health assistance, giving financing to the entrepreneur, and enhancing muslim economy in various fields. Nevertheless, a proper mechanism of IWB must be developed in order to avoid any obstacles in terms of capital requirement, risky investment, limited number of experts in the field of Islamic bank and waqf as well as legal and regulation requirement.

It is worldly known that one of the main obstacles which is often faced by the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) practitioners is the ability to access sources of funding. At the time where the absorption of banking credit to MSMEs is still very limited, the role of sharia capital market is considered as an alternative to support this limitation. Expanding the role of sharia capital market finds it moment when Indonesia Finance Service Authority (FSA) issued regulations that provide space for the capital market to also active in real sector businesses. In accordance with the FSA Rules N0.37/2014, mutual fund (unit trust) in the form of Collective Investment Contract (CIC) - Limited Investment/ Participation Fund (LPF) has the objective to pave the way for mutual fund investors to make direct investments in real investments. The proposed model that might be realized to smoothen the intermediary role of sharia capital market to the development of MSMEs is through the hybrid model that might linking mutual fund/investment manager and corporate, particularly venture capital. Using Analytical Network Process (ANP) approach this paper indicates that with the value of rater agreement 1.0, the research found that there are four main cluster problems which become an obstacle the proposed model, namely: (a) the reputation of mutual fund/investment manager; (b) investment grade rating of corporate (venture capital); (c) risk appetiate of investor as shahib al-mal; and (d) government regulation. Policy recommendation that might become solution, according to the value of rater agreement 1.0 is sequentially as follow, namely: (a) fully support from government; especially for a relatively new mutual fund with no experience in the capital markets industry; (b) Corporate (venture capital) should be able to offer Islamic Microfinance Finance Institutions (IMFIs) and MSMEs that have good business feasibility to the mutual fund/investment manager as well as investor; (c) the government should be able to guarantee legal certainty in the context of protection, including advocacy for investors; and last but not least (d) There is an extremely hope that investors could change their investment behavior paradigm, from risk averse to risk taker.

As an alternative source of financing, Investment Account Platform (IAP) becomes a new phenomenon of raising financing for SMEs from a large pool of investors via the internet, and investment diversification portfolio tools among investors in Malaysia. The purpose of this study is to identify critical factors that influence behavioral intention of investors to invest in IAP’s projects in Malaysia. The primary data (n=1000 respondents) are collected from the investors in the Klang Valley, Malaysia and the analysis is conducted using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Furthermore, the model has validated its acceptance in the field by adopting the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study has revealed that both the perceived usefulness and perceived easy to use are found to have a positive impact on the behavioral intention of investors to use IAP in Malaysia. Furthermore, perceived easy to use has a positive relationship and direct effect with perceived usefulness of investors to use IAP.