Managing and Reporting of Shari’ah Non-Compliant Income in Malaysian Islamic Banks: A Methodology Perspectives

Abstract

Shari’ah Compliance and Governance Framework is essential to guide the banks on the regulatory requirement as it supports the growth and development of the Islamic finance industry. Section 28(1) and Section 28(3) of the Islamic Financial Services Act (IFSA) 2013, states that IFI needs to comply with the Shari’ah principles in all of their activities religiously. Managing and reporting Shari’ah Non-Compliance (SNC) for instance, are crucial operational matters to the banks. In most cases, Islamic banks could be exposed to SNC incidents due to Shari’ah non-compliance events (SNCE) or Shari’ah Non-Compliant Income (SNCI). This study will be focusing on SNCI, unblessed income that should be de-recognized from the bank’s income. To investigate the end-to-end process of managing and reporting SNCI in Malaysian Islamic banks, the insight of the key functions, and the Shari’ah scholars were obtained. Besides in-depth interviews, documentation review of relevant policy documents, and content analysis on the annual reports of ten Islamic banks were also performed to fulfill the delineated research objectives. Besides data source and methods triangulation, ‘The Six Phases of Reflexive Thematic Analysis’ was also applied to explore and develop an understanding of patterned meaning across the datasets, eased by Atlas.ti. Finally, a guideline of best practices in managing and reporting the SNCI is proposed to Malaysian Islamic banks.    Keywords: Non-complaint income; financial reporting; disclosure; Islamic banks; triangulation