Islamic financial institutions fear to disclose information

The reluctance of Islamic institutions in disclosing their information and data is seen as one of the key challenges faced by Malaysian researchers. Monash University professor and consultant Paresh Kumar Narayan said that if the Islamic financial institutions are not willing to provide the data, that puts a question mark on the sustainability of Islamic finance. Paresh Kumar said that the Islamic finance practitioners can focus on developing databases that are readily available because this would establish a research culture that talks about the robustness of the industry. Islamic Development Bank vice president finance and chief financial officer Dr Zamir Iqbal concurred with the observation saying that the Islamic finance industry is going through some stagnation in terms of research.