Awareness of Islamic banking products and services among non-Muslim students in selected northern universities of Malaysia

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 98%, , course: Islamic Finance and Banking, language: English, abstract: Islamic financial industry has shown a positive growth that attracts many investors and clients worldwide. Malaysia, one of the pioneer members of this emerging industry, is also experiencing notable development in operating more than seventeen Islamic banking institutions. However, non-Muslim clients experience difficulties when it comes to understanding the overall system, principles, features and sophisticated Arabic terms that Islamic banks use. The purpose of this research is to examine the level of awareness, understanding, and perceptions of non-Muslims in selected northern universities of Malaysia towards Islamic banking products and services. In addition, this study also aims to investigate if there are any demographic factors that influence the awareness, understanding, and perceptions of Islamic Banking products and services among non-Muslim students in selected universities. The result shows that the vast majority of respondents are generally aware of Islamic banking products and services. Nevertheless, the result also indicates that non-Muslim students do not have enough knowledge and understanding of Arabic terms that Islamic Banks use in their products and services. The study found that there is a significant relationship between understanding and awareness. Furthermore, the results showed that there is no significant relationship between perception and awareness. Moreover, the study found that demographic factors such as age, religion, and level of education show significant differences among respondents, while gender shows no significant difference among the respondents. This study contributes to the available literature on the Islamic banking Industry in general while imparting managerial aspects through its recommendations. It suggests that Islamic banking managers should take all necessary steps to adopt marketing policies and other endeavors in order to make sure that all clients of Islamic banks should have a maximum awareness, understanding and positive perception towards the products and services of Islamic banking.