The diploma thesis is focused on a comparison of European and Islamic insurance. The theoretical part describes the main principles of European and Islamic insurance. The thesis compares development of insurance premiums and takaful contributions. The thesis provides an analysis of insurance markets of Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and the United Kingdom, including their comparison. The thesis describes development of amount of Muslim population. Based on the results, recommendations for implementation of insurance products for European insurance companies on takaful basis have been suggested.

La finance islamique s'appuie sur un modèle d'intermédiation bancaire à taux zéro. C'est par conséquent une finance dite libre d'intérêt. Elle nécessite en outre l'adossement de toutes les transactions à un actif tangible tout en étant fondée sur le partage des profits et des pertes. Elle permet de regrouper toutes les techniques qui permettent de mettre des fonds à la disposition d'un agent économique pour répondre à ses besoins à court ou à long terme, sans violer l'interdiction absolue de recevoir une rémunération sous formes d'intérêts, ni les autres principes fondamentaux édictés par le droit musulman. D'après les standards de l’AAOIFI, chaque banque islamique doit se doter d'un conseil de conformité à la charia, composé de jurisconsultes et d’experts en finance islamique (scharia scholars) indépendants désignés par l'Assemblée générale des actionnaires de l'établissement. Composé au mois de trois savants, le rôle de la sharia board est de valider et de certifier les contrats et les transactions financières de la banque. Pour ce faire il est chargé de spécifier les règles de conformité avec les principes de la jurisprudence islamique et de contrôler leur application. Il doit ainsi procéder à des vérifications des activités entreprises par la banque, des procédures et de la documentation qui les accompagnent. Le périmètre de la finance islamique couvre les activités historiques d'un marché financier. Les banques y jouent un rôle important et leur intermédiation reste prédominante dans la collecte de l'épargne et le financement des projets. L'appel public à l'épargne passe par le marché des sukuk. Aujourd'hui, on s'accorde à reconnaître qu'un système économique et technique, global, a saisi le monde. Il s'agit d'un système financier, de l'économie concurrentielle de marché tend à devenir une idéologie, dans la mesure où il n'est pas organisé en termes de fins ni de valeurs. Ainsi, on s'intéresse d'abord à présenter la mobilisation de la finance islamique en France en insistant sur le marché du sukuk qui a envahi le monde entier. Puis on aborde le sujet de l'assurance islamique (le Takaful) qui est un type d'assurance islamique dans lequel les membres mettent de l'argent en commun pour bénéficier d'une garantie mutuelle contre pertes ou dommages. Fondé sur les préceptes de la charia, l'assurance dite« Takaful » procède de l'idée que les individus doivent coopérer entre eux et se protéger mutuellement. Les compagnies d'assurance takaful sont une alternative aux compagnies d'assurance commerciales classiques, qui vont à l'encontre des principes du riba (l'intérêt), de l'al-mayssir (le hasard), et du al-ghârar (la spéculation), tous prohibés par la charia. Ce travail a principalement permis de montrer la nouvelle place de la France et notamment Paris dans ce marché mondial et il a permis de dresser un état des lieux de la recherche d'alternatives, d'identifier et de comprendre le marché des sukuk sur notre territoire et surtout, de proposer des solutions pour permette à la place de Paris d'être la terre d'accueil du marché des sukuk et de tous les types d'activités financières islamiques, banque d'investissement et de détail, assurance takaful. Et pour faire de la France la capitale de la finance islamique au monde. / The development of Islamic finance in the global market and the strong appetite that this compartment has in conventional finance arouses professionals to invite you to consider France to be the location of project finance transactions. Islamic finance is not only directed to the 1.5 billion Muslims. Several western countries are also interested in it because it has interesting features on transparency and banking regulation. Islamic finance is based on the principles of Islamic law (Sharia) that impose justice, fairness and transparency. It relies on a bank intermediation model to zero and is, therefore, called a free financial interest. Free financial interest also requires the backing of all transactions in a tangible asset white being based on both the share of profits and losses. With a range between 2.1 and 5 million Muslims, France has more Muslims that no less than eight members of the Arab League including Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Palestine, Djibouti and the Comores Islands. This figure shows de facto that France is the first European country by the importance of its Muslim community and will remain so until 2030. With the adoption of tax instructions to avoid penalizing Islamic finance operations compared to convention al operations, the legal framework is present. In addition, the insurance law provides for statutes perfectly compatible with Takaful principles without the need to legislate or amend. France is the world's fifth largest insurance market with a penetration rate of nearly 10% according to the SIGMA journal published by Swiss Re. The 2013 annual report of the FFSA reported 188 billion euros of contributions of ail markets in France. If Takaful solutions arrived to pick only 2% of the French market in France it would become the second global market. Two Islamic instruments have emerged in France first. Sukuk, which is a mutual solidarity through a pooling of risks and resources by a collective way (insured), are shared by the market and by other Islamic insurance (Takaful).

The main aim of the thesis is to describe and explain the rules of Islamic financial world and outline working principles of the Islamic insurance. This work characterizes the fundamental models on which takaful insurance company works. It describes the basic products and the regulation in the sector. The part of the thesis is focused on the analysis of Islamic insurance market, the financial crisis, the potential of takaful in Europe and the development of Islamic insurance in the future.

The main objective of this research is to examine whether the current practices of Islamic banking and financial activities in Saudi Arabia are compatible with the principles of Shariah. This examination includes the current uses of sukuk (Islamic bonds), the models of takaful (Islamic insurance) and accepted risk transfer mechanisms in Islamic structured finance (Islamic derivatives). The second purpose is to investigate the basic laws of banking and financial activities in Saudi Arabia and examine whether they are compatible with Shariah principles. The final aim is to suggest solutions to the absence of regulatory and supervisory systems of Islamic finance in Saudi Arabia by proposing a legislative and regulatory framework for Islamic banking and finance in Saudi Arabia. The research findings show that there are no specific laws and regulations governing Islamic banking and financial activities in Saudi Arabia. In addition, there is no independent central Shariah board to regulate and supervise Islamic banking and financial activities in Saudi Arabia, nor are there are any specialised commercial courts to look into banking issues. The research finds that there are some articles in the law of supervision of cooperative insurance companies in Saudi Arabia, and its implementing regulations, which do not comply with Shariah, and in addition, there is some incompatibility between the law and its implementing regulations. The final finding is that the issuance of sukuk and Islamic financial derivatives in Saudi Arabia are not consistent with Shariah requirements, due to the absence of regulatory policies and supervisory harmonisation, while Islamic insurance needs to amend some articles of the law of supervision of cooperative insurance companies in Saudi Arabia, and its implementing regulations, in order to comply with Shariah and also to avoid incompatibility between them.

An adaptable service system adjusts to the operational-level environments of organisations to enable heterogeneous services. This adaptation is important for sustainability and contextual-value (benefit) creation in a service system. Academics, such as those related to the current service-ecosystem concept, acknowledge the significance of this adaptation. However, little is known about a comprehensive adaptation process and how that integrates within a design for a service system. Also, practitioners are inclined towards this development, as the financial regulator in Pakistan has established an “evolutionary framework”. This framework encourages financial institutions to design Shariah finance services (SFS) which respond and evolve to the emergent market environments. The existing SFS models take benefit from Islamic jurisprudence and economics literatures to provide designs for transactions of financial and physical assets. However, the SFS models de-emphasis the intangible service-elements, where the adaptation is more likely to occur. Currently there is a great need for models that could explain the detailed adaptation process and its placement in an SFS design. The aim of this research is to develop, evaluate and theorise a model for conceptualising a holistic adaptable service-system design. The research aim is achieved through the proposal of a novel deferred service-system design (DSD) model. The DSD conceptualises a service-system design that adapts to the operational-level environments of SFS organisations in Pakistan. The DSD has seven constructs: (i) the service creators apply centrally-planned designs to create a service ii) they adapt these designs to meet the requirements of emergent contexts (iii) the service personnel, customers and aiding parties co-create a service by integrating their (iv) roles and actions, (v) resources and usufructs, (vi) rules and control to generate (vii) value. DSD is based on service-system design (SSD) literature, SFS literature and theory of deferred action (TODA)  a theory of system and organisation design. A multiple case study strategy is employed to evaluate, extend and theorise the DSD developed in phase I. Qualitative data are collected in four SFS organisations: Islamic commercial bank, Islamic life Takaful, Islamic mutual fund, and Islamic leasing organisation. Thirty-two in-depth narrative interviews of SFS personnel are conducted and analysed using a narrative discourse analysis method. The findings are triangulated by adding focus-group discussions, visualisations and service offering documents. The empirical findings are synthesised with the extant literature to develop a novel and comprehensive DSD in phase II. The findings show that the service co-creators apply a centrally-developed planned design typology (PDT). PDT includes different blends of SFS models (e.g., partnerships, sales, leases, agency and endowment), expected varieties (list, range and negative) and addable-deductible modules. The service co-creators and their inclusive systems (e.g., families, societies, markets, regulators and other government agencies) affect the planned service-system design to adapt or migrate. The service co-creators follow a novel six-step deferred adaptation process (DAP): emergence locale, information diffusion, knowledge diffusion, indexation, specifics evaluation and adaptation/migration. The empirical findings advance our understanding of a service-system design by showing how a planned design enables adaptation through PDT. More importantly, how the service co-creators follow a systematic process, DAP, to attain the desired adaptation or migrate off the scene. The findings also broaden the conceptualisation of SFS by showing how it is co-created by the financial institutions, customers and aiding parties. This is due to the SFS being perceived as a product of financial institution alone. This research also makes a contribution to service visualisation method by extending and using the service blueprint as an additional data-collection and analysis tool. This study provided fourteen implications for the practitioners.

Purpose This research is to investigate the effect of national culture on service provision. Hence, the researcher aims Firstly to investigate the differences in national culture between any two different countries share some attributes like language, religion or geographic location. Secondly, it aims to find whether the differences in national culture of two countries associated with differences in service provision. Finally, the researcher aims to propose a framework that shows how differences in national culture may associate with differences in service provision. Design /Methodology/ Approach This research will quantitatively develop and examine a conceptual framework that is designed to test the effect of national culture on service provision within the context of Takful industry. A total of 463 respondents completed the survey based questionnaire from two different countries (Kuwait and Egypt) which are identified as being related to the same cluster that is, the Arab clusters. The context of the research happened to be within the context of Takaful (Islamic insurance industry) due to the uniqueness of the sector to the cluster. The data was statistically tested using SPSS and AMOS programming system as the primary statistical technique to build structure equation modelling that allows testing the proposed conceptual framework Findings Results have shown that the differences in national culture of power distance and uncertainty avoidance have an effect on service provision through service delivery gaps. Results indicated that the service delivery gaps of information gap, specification gap and performance gap partially mediate the effect of national culture on service provision in terms of information flow, style of management, control, communication policy, specification driver and boundary system. The findings also indicate that there are differences in national culture between Kuwait and Egypt despite the commonality of language and religion. The findings are in contrary to Hofstede’s findings in which he argues that Arab cluster have an identical national culture dominated by Islam. Finally, results provide strong evidence that the researcher cannot disconfirm the theory after being statistically tested in which result support the validity of the theory. Limitations The research studied only two dimensions of national culture against three service gap attributed to the theory followed by the research, however they were found strongly linked in previous research. Also the research has addressed only one sector of service industry in two countries, but since the industry (Takaful) stemmed from the religion of the context to which previous research assumes homogeneity of Arab national culture based on the power of the religion. Hence, generalizability of the findings can be extended to any national culture of two countries from the similar cluster share similar attributes of religion and language. Contributions: Contribution to theory This research confirmed the findings of previous researches as to what extent national culture effect service provision associated with service delivery gaps. It confirmed previous research findings on the underlying relationships between national culture and service provision and how this might be associated with service delivery gaps. An important contribution to theory is the ability of power distance and uncertainty avoidance in predicting national culture differences in service provision between any two countries. Further, the study found that the national culture dimensions do not equally influence service provision as it varies cross culturally. In addition, the research contributes to the theory by providing a conceptual framework that can cultivates the seed in the body of knowledge to enrich the soil for researchers to study the effect of national culture on service provision. Another contribution stems from the findings that opposes Hofested’s claim regarding the homogeneity of Arab countries. Finally, the research proposes a data driven model stems from the collected data. Contribution to Practice The findings of this research assist service providers of Takaful in particular, and services sector providers in general, to improve their service quality as it identifies and explains some key insights that might help in dealing with various service delivery gaps. Therefore, it is very important for marketers to understand the effect of national culture differences on service delivery gaps which in turn effect the mechanisms of service provision. Contribution to Policy The research has contributed to the policy with which delivery processes can be systematically enhancing the excellence of service delivery for organizations. Policies of organizations can be set taking in consideration the role of national culture. Organizations may bridge the service delivery gap if they comprehend the effect of national culture on the delivery of their services. Information gap, specification gap and performance gap can be reduced or eliminated if provider understands the effect of national culture on those gaps and how they policies for Information flow, Style of management, Control, Communication policy, Specification driver and Boundary System. These polices may apply differently in different cultural settings as policies applicable in one culture may not be valid for other culture. On the other hand, differences in power distance and risk acceptance may shape provider’s policy to adapt to the pertinent environment. Hence, this research provides policy makers understand the role of culture on service provision. Contribution to method This research is significant in drawing support from cultures which is different from Anglo cultures (Hofstede, 1980) which in most researches provide evidence to the management literature. On the foundation of the literature review, the research has contributed to method by using a unique context that related directly to the studied national cultures. The method was the adoption of national culture of countries that belong to the same cluster and study the differences/similarities of this national culture with a unique context that related to the dimension to which they were clustered upon like religion and language. Moderation effect of national culture was not appropriate as the conventional methodology when using structural equation modelling in cross cultural studies. However, mediation effect has been found valid and appropriate in exploring the effect of national culture on service provision. results revealed that the method of testing mediation effect was successful in highlighting the effect of national culture drawn from similar cluster countries on service provision mediated by service quality gaps with which a new addition has been added to the body of the literature.

Many studies have focused on the insurance industry in the US and other developed countries. Few studies have investigated the efficiency and organizational form in developing countries. This is particularly true for the Takaful insurance industry. Takaful insurance is mutual insurance based on Islamic principles. The rapid growth of Takaful insurers in many countries around the world and their long existence make it important to examine them. Chapter 1 discusses the history and the practice of insurance during the time of ancient Arabs tribes. I discuss the conduct of the Holy Prophet (SAW) relating to insurance practice. I also briefly outlines the development of Islamic insurance in the fourteenth to the seventh centuries, nineteenth century, and the development in the twentieth century. Chapter 2 investigates economies of scope and agency problems for Takaful insurance companies operating in 19 countries. I test the conglomeration hypothesis, which holds that firms can optimize by diversifying across businesses, versus the strategic focus hypothesis, which holds that firms improve by focusing on core businesses. More specifically, I analyze whether it is advantageous for insurers to offer both property-liability insurance and family insurance (life insurance), or to specialize in one major industry segment. I also test for agency problems, which imply that firms must motivate the agent to ensure compliance with the principal's wealth maximization objectives. That is, I analyze whether it is advantageous for insurers to operate under a Mudharaba (profit sharing) model or operate under a Wakala (fee based) model. I estimate cost efficiency utilizing data envelopment analysis (DEA). Then, I test for scope economies and agency problems by regressing efficiency scores on control variables and indicators for strategic focus and the operating model. The results show that the Wakala operating model is cost inefficient and focused Takaful insurers are associated with higher cost efficiency. Chapter 3 investigates the relationship between insolvency risk and efficiency for Takaful insurers. I measure the insolvency risk by computing the z-score which measure distance to default. I calculate the efficiency scores using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). I find that efficient firms have a higher distance to default. I also find that firms which operate in multiple lines are penalized for diversification by being more likely to become insolvent. In addition, I show that investing in sukkuk and real-estate increase the insolvency risk. Chapter 4 analyzes the coexistence of Takaful and conventional insurance. I analyze the efficiency of different organizational forms in 13 countries. Technical, allocative, cost, and revenue frontiers were estimated using data envelopment analysis. I test the expense preference hypothesis and efficient structure hypothesis. I find evidence for the efficient structure hypothesis which claims that the two organizational forms serve different market segments due to differences in managerial discretion and access to capital. I also find evidence for the expense preference hypothesis which states that mutual insurers are less cost efficient than stock insurers due to unresolved agency conflicts (e.g., higher bonus consumption by mutual managers). The results provide insight into the competitiveness of conventional and Takaful insurers from different countries. Finally, chapter 5 concludes the main results of the study. / Business Administration/Risk Management and Insurance

In the UK and Saudi Arabia, it is necessary for the contracting parties in insurance contracts to comply with the requirement of the doctrine of utmost good faith. In recent years, the doctrine of utmost good faith and the mutual duties of the contracting parties have developed in different ways in each jurisdiction. Both jurisdictions provide consumer protection in insurance markets by Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representation) Act 2012 in the UK and Insurance Consumer Protection Principles 2014 in Saudi Arabia. However, there are many differences between the conduct of each jurisdiction since the coming into force of the Insurance Act 2015 in the UK, which revolutionised the insurance law in several key areas. This thesis particularly aims to critically analyse the reform of the doctrine of utmost good faith and looks at how the current reform impacts on the interpretation of this doctrine between the UK and Saudi jurisdictions. This study critically analyses the insureds’ pre-contractual duties for consumers and businesses in the UK with a comparison to Saudi law.

In recent years the popularity of Islamic insurance policies has grown rapidly with many companies across the world providing this service. London is said to be the hub for Islamic finance. It is well known for welcoming innovative financial methods. The FSA have already authorised the insurance company Salaam Halal to provide policies based on Shariah principles. The FSA, however, announced that they must operate within the same legal framework as all other insurance policies. Consequently English law has to be applied in Islamic policies taken in this country. However, in many aspects, Shariah principles contradict English insurance law. This thesis aims to discover how they contradict and recommend how the Islamic insurance policies can be applied in English law without breaking Shariah principles. As Shariah principles merely provide a wide boundary within which any law can be applied, this thesis analyses English insurance law first, and then discusses how Islamic insurance policies can operate within the English framework. In many cases, English insurance law crosses the boundary of Shairah principles due to its unfair consequences. Consequently making English insurance law fairer could be the best solution to allow the use of Islamic insurance policies under English law. Pragmatically, the thesis focuses mainly on problems within current English insurance law and recommends possible solutions. In many cases, the solutions suggested by the Law Commission are found to be incapable of establishing fairness. The majority part of this thesis is spent trying to establish a fairer framework for English insurance law. This fairer English insurance law is found to be Shariah compliant in most cases. In some cases it is not complaint due to operational differences between the two legal systems. In these cases, the thesis recommends that the Islamic insurer should incorporate certain terms to make policies Shariah compliant without breaching English insurance law.

With the rapid development of the Islamic banking and finance in South Africa, the legal regime of South Africa, must be able to progress at the same rate of development. The recognition of a foreign legal system such as Islamic law in South Africa is challenging and difficult. South Africa, has an interest based insurance legislative framework and this is not aligned with the principles of the Islamic financial system. As a result of this, regulators have taken various measures to develop and promote the Islamic Industry. The amendment to the South African Tax legislation has created an equitable and level playing field for Islamic law. The South African government also has a further obligation which is to develop a legislative framework to govern Islamic law, as well as to enhance the regulatory and supervisory framework. The study of the development of the Islamic legal regime is an important area that aids legal practitioners in identifying and resolving legal disputes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the accommodation of the Islamic law of Takaful under the South African Insurance legal framework. / Public, Constitutional and International Law / LL. M. (Public, Constitutional and International Law)