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In the aftermath of the Islamic resurgence movement, the call for the abolition of interest and the introduction of profit and loss sharing schemes gained momentum. Islamic writers have concentrated on describing the operations of an Islamic bank in an interest based economy and others have outlined the principles and functions of the Islamic economy. However there has not yet been a comprehensive study dealing with the implications of abolishing interest in a specific country. Therefore the major objective of this thesis is to examine the possible introduction of interest free banking in Kuwait, its implications, operations, advantages and diyantages. It also focuses upon the transformation process necessary to bring about these required changes. The first chapter presents an overview of the Islamic economic system and its underlying principles; these are the cornerstone for any transformation from the conventional economic system to a new Islamic system. The second chapter focuses on Islamic banking, its methodology, objectives and main operations in theory and practice. The third chapter deals with the main features of the Kuwait economy. An emphasis is put upon the existing banking system and the role of the central bank in conducting its interest-based monetary policy. The thesis then describes the changes required in the current financing instruments employed by Kuwaiti banks in order to adapt to a new Islamic system. In this respect it is assumed that the current banking structure will remain intact. Stress is placed upon the changes required in the short, medium and long-term financing instruments used domestically. The central bank's changing role and the monetary policy implications of a new Islamic system are also analysed. The final chapter summarises the findings and recommendations of the thesis and the advantages and disadvantages of interest free banking with reference to Kuwait.

In the last decades several economists and practitioners have pointed out the importance of financial markets for real economic activity. In this dissertation we analyse the interaction between credit, especially banking, and real activity. While we deal also with the interaction between credit and firms' behaviour at the microeconomic level, our main emphasis is on the impact of credit on aggregate variables. Our target is, taking as primitive distinguishing features of intermediaries (banks), to understand how these features affect the link between intermediation (banking) and real variables. In the dissertation we focus both on features of the financial structure of intermediaries, like the structure of banks' liabilities, and on features of their activity, like intermediaries' superior ability in gathering information and monitoring borrowers. The dissertation offers several policy implications. The banking sector is one of the most regulated sectors in modern economies: besides being subject to regulation directly, the activity of banks is also constrained by other branches of the legal framework like the bankruptcy law. Throughout the dissertation we devote particular attention to regulatory and legal prescriptions and to the way they are concretely implemented. Overall, the dissertation suggests several mechanisms of interaction between the credit sector and the real economy that deserve further attention in future research.

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The purpose of this study is to provide a precise and exhaustive study as well as an analysis of the place occupied by the banking security under Quebec Law in relation to the coming into force of the Civil Code of Quebec on January 1st 1994. / The author shall emphasize her research on specific elements that have changed with the existence of new rules of civil law and that will contribute to the creation of new conflicts between financing banks of specific classes of debtors under the Bank Act mechanism and the other creditors of the latter. / A first step will be to review constitutional principles underlying conflicts between provincial private law and federal exclusive jurisdiction matters, an analysis being considered necessary in order to study specific conflicts that might exist along the overlap situations between the Civil Code of Quebec and the Bank Act. / This text core shall emphasize on the nature of the right conferred to the bank by the banking security under the light of the new Quebec law of real security, the effect of article 1801 C.c.Q. in relation to the banking conventions, and the multiple interactions between the banking security and certain types of hypotheses.

The satisfactory measurement of banking output has eluded statistical agencies since the inception of national income accounting. At the heart of the problem is the treatment of interest. Net interest payments are considered part of the output originating in the paying industries. When applied to the banking sector this practice results in unrealistically low or even negative output and an imputation is carried out to rectify the problem. This thesis identifies the problems surrounding the existing concepts and practices, discusses alternatives that have been proposed and develops a new approach to measuring banking output. The rate of interest is decomposed into a transfer and a service part and economic prices for banking services are constructed. Thus, nominal and real banking output are obtained in a straightforward manner. Empirical work points to the viability of the new approach.

This thesis applies innovative methods to the efficiency and productivity analysis of the Australian banking system. Key areas of investigation include the impact of regulatory reforms on bank performance, the impact of firm entry and exit on industry productivity and the changing nature of banking and the role of risk in measuring bank value-added. The latter leads to the construction of a new bank production model, emphasising risk management as part of a bank??s value-added. As such, the proposed bank output framework views risk as a productive service, rather than a bad output or externality, which is often assumed in the literature. Aided with this new framework, several refinements are suggested for the treatment and measurement of bank output by researchers and statistical agencies. A unified regulatory framework combined with a greater level of harmonisation in rules in the Australian banking sector, has meant that a pooled analysis of all deposit-taking institutions has become feasible for the first time. With an enlarged dataset new insights are gained into the relative performance of deposit-taking institutions in Australia. The results challenge commonly held views of bank efficiency and the relevance of scale, size and incumbency when measuring bank efficiency. The new definition of bank output is also applied across the sector using econometric and non-parametric techniques to gauge productivity. Problems with balanced data sets and aggregation of firm level productivity are examined. A new approach to decomposing aggregate industry level productivity is introduced based on strong axiomatic grounds and its ability to attribute productivity between continuing, exiting and entering firms. The technique is applied for the first time and uses the newly developed bank output production model. The analysis provides key information on the relative performance of firms in the Australian banking sector.

Although the offering of financial products and services over the Internet by banks and financial institutions continues to spread, reports on Internet banking show that the adoption and usage of such services by consumers are low. Further, relatively little empirical research has been carried out to examine factors influencing users' adoption or use of Internet banking services, particularly in New Zealand. Hence, there is a need to identify relevant factors that influence New Zealand's bank customers' intentions to use Internet banking. This research used two commonly applied and empirically supported models of information technology adoption to achieve this objective. In this study, Davis's (1989) technology acceptance model (TAM) is extended by two external variables, namely risk and self-efficacy. The second model used is a reduced version of Moore and Benbasat's (1991) perceived characteristics of innovation (PCI) model, without the image and voluntariness constructs. A questionnaire was used to conducting a postal survey of 1000 individuals in Auckland, New Zealand. Out of 163 responses received 157(15.7%) were usable and with this data both research models were tested.The results reveal that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, self-efficacy, relative advantage, compatibility, and result demonstrability have a significant association with intention to use Internet banking, while risk, visibility and trialability are not significant. Both the modified TAM and PCI models used in the study have a similar explanatory power of slightly over 20% of the variance in intention. In the TAM model, perceived usefulness and self-efficacy are significant variables, while compatibility is the only variable significant for the PCI model. Further, results indicate that users' perceptions of various aspects of Internet banking are more positive than non-users' perceptions, except for risk.The results of this study indicate that both TAM and PCI have low capabilities in explaining the variances in users' intention to adopt or use Internet banking services. Therefore, further studies are recommended to examine the performance of these models in Internet banking studies and also to improve the prediction power of these models by incorporating additional constructs. Although risk is found to be insignificant in this study, considering results of prior studies, further studies are required to examine its influence on intention.For banks point of view, banks should consider launching campaigns to demonstrate the usefulness and benefits. Once users perceive that advantages outweigh disadvantages, they are more likely to adopt or use Internet banking. Additionally, banks must make continuous effort to understand consumers' requirement and design and deliver their products and services in such a way that it is consistent with customers' requirements, beliefs and the way customers are accustomed to work. Banks website should facilitate customers with a 'one stop comprehensive financial' service. Banks can arrange hands-on training for prospective users to enhance their self-efficacy or may pay additional interest on online-deposit accounts (can be access through Internet only). Besides promoting services, banks need to invest in staff education and training and be equipped with advanced computer technology.

Thesis (doctoral) - Universität, Frankfurt, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-234).