Abstract
Purpose: This paper aims to examine the ethical disclosure level (EDL) of Islamic Banks
(IBs)in Malaysia, which is influenced by factors such as institutional differences that may
exist in Malaysia as compared to other countries. Secondly, Malaysian environment offers
identifiable difference in religious segments that divide by the ethnic lines.
Design/methodology/approach: The study used EDL to measure the extent to which each
bank’s ethical disclosure level met the benchmark. The examination involves a comparison of
the actual disclosures of 10 local IBs in their 2009 annual reports against the Islamic ethical
disclosure index benchmarking.
Findings: The findings reveal that IBs fall short in comparison with the ideal benchmark of
the study. Areas they appear to fall very short include among others such as qard hasan and
zakah related disclosures.
Research Limitation: The study used only annual reports in exploring the disclosures level
of IBs that give very limited information. The small sample of the study could make
generalazability to the wider population more difficult.
Originality/value: This study reveals the IBs level of ED practices (for banks that claimed to
be operating within the Shariah principles). Despite IBs operates in an environment where
the economy is under the domination of Conventional Banks (CBs), adoption of International
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), operation under different ethnic group and religion,
which may influence the IBs reporting practices in the Malaysian context.
1. INTRODUCTION
In fulfilling the banking image and expectations, every Islamic Bank (IBs)is required
to adhere to shariah principles in all activities. More transparency needed in their annual
Obid, Hajj, Bank Ethical Disclosure Level: Malaysian Islamics Bank 200
report by providing full disclosure as suggested by Baydoun and Willet (2000). However,
prior studies show some IBs failed to provide full disclosure and adhere to the Ideal Islamic
Ethical Identities in their annual report (e.g., Haniffa and Hudaib 2007; Maali et al. 2006).
In line with the above studies, this paper examines and investigates the disclosure
level of IBs Malaysia in comparison with an ideal Islamic benchmark index (Haniffa and
Hudaib 2007; Maali et al. 2006).
The study is motivated by two factors. First, institutional differences of IBs Malaysia
appear to be different from those practiced in other parts of the world such as The Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, in which prior studies have focused. These
institutional differences may arguably affect the disclosure practices of Malaysian IBs.
Second, the Malaysian environment offers identifiable differences in religious segments that
are divided by the ethnic lines. These religious differences may influence the IBs to function
in a non-Islamic worldview.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
5. Zakah
Zakah is a religious duty levied onto Muslim individual for socio-economic justice. There
is hot debate in the literature regarding who is liable for zakah payment, whether the
organization or the shareholders. Gambling and Karim (1991)opine that zakah is
obligatory onto individuals Muslims, and therefore, organizations are not liable. Others
argue that both shareholders and entities should pay the zakah. Despite these opposing
ideas, Shihaddeh (1987) as cited in (Maali et al. 2006) remarks that the Islamic Fiqh
Academy, at its first Zakah conference held in Kuwait in 1984, reached the conclusion
that businesses are not required to pay Zakah, unless such a requirement is imposed by
law or agreed by their shareholders.
It is important is for the IB to disclose the following details in their annual reports:
a) Which party is liable for zakah.
b) Statement of sources and uses of Zakah and
c) Shariah Boards’ attestation regarding the computation and distribution of Zakah.
The initial population of the study consisted of all IBs in Malaysia. Currently, there
are 17 IBs in Malaysia; eleven are local owned while six are foreign owned banks (Bank
203 Obid, Hajj, Bank Ethical Disclosure Level: Malaysian Islamics Bank
Negara Malaysia Report 2009). As foreign owned IBs, their reporting and disclosure is
influenced by their home countries’ reporting standard. Hence, the study excludes these
foreign owned banks and focuses on 11 local IBs. The annual reports of IBs are retrieved
from their websites. However, there are only 10 individual annual reports that are available.
AmIB seems to be the only IBs that provide its annual report in a group. To ensure high
objectivity in examining the annual reports, we decided to exclude AmIB from the sample.
This leaves us with the final sample of 10 local IBs. This sample represents 59% of total IBs
in Malaysia.
The analysis is for one-year, 2009.The study adopts content analysis as prior studies
in the area of IBs did previously (Maali et al. 2006; Haniffa and Hudaib 2007). Un-weighted
disclosure index is used in the study where if the item in the index is disclosed in the annual
report is regarded as 1 and 0 otherwise. Meanwhile, Yes and No are used to represent 1 and 0
respectively, later in the findings presentations.
This study limits its analysis on banks annual reports. As Haniffa and Hudaib (2007)
pointed out, one of the most important things in dealing with content analysis is the selection
and development of categories into which content units are classified. Following that, a self-
constructed EDL dimension is constructed.
4. EMPIRICAL RESULTS
The results of the content analysis are set out in Table 1. The results reveal that some
banks disclose fully on items of shariah compliance while some are not. This shows that the
overall extent of the ethical disclosure benchmark by the 10 IBs in Malaysia falls short.
The overall mean level of disclosure compared to the study’s benchmark was 47.33%.
The bank which coming closest to meeting the benchmark is Bank Islam Malaysia (BIMB).
However, BIMB fails to disclose items of Qard Hassan. Banks Muamalat and Alliance
disclosed slightly on Qard Hassan. None of the Banks reviewed disclosed in their annual
reports the ‘Statement of sources and uses of Zakah’. However, BIMB explicitly disclosed
SAB attestation regarding the computation and distribution of Zakah.
the Bank will continue to grow beyond the traditional role of IBs by providing more
innovative Shariah-based products and services, in particular equity-based financing
structures encompassing Musharakah and Mudharabah contracts…. As a full fledged IBs,
customers are assured that all banking transactions are free from the elements of interests
(riba), uncertainty (gharar), gambling (maisir) and other un-Islamic fundamentals as these
are monitored by the Bank’s Shariah Department and supervised by the Shariah Committee”.
result might imply that IBs in Malaysia fear that they may not generate profit from qard
Hassan since their main objective is to generate profit (Adnan and Arifin 2010).
4.4. Employee Benefits and Welfare
Employee welfare is a crucial aspect in which IBs have to maintain and improve
better. On contrary, the results of the study show that only selected IBs disclosed only
primary items such as employee salary and pension. Table 5 shows that only two banks,
namely BIMB and RHB, which constitute 20% of those IBs reviewed, disclosed that they
provide their staff training on shariah awareness. BIMB constitutes 1% of the sample of IBs
disclose the exact amount spent on employee’s training. BIMB stated clearly in the annual
report that, “During the financial year, more than 25 Shariah training sessions and courses
were organized which mainly aimed at enhancing the level of understanding of Shariah
application in the banking business among the staff. In FY2009, over RM6.5 million was
spent on training as part of our commitment towards human resource optimization”.
BIMB scores 100% of disclosure level with regard to employee benefits benchmark
followed by RHB discloses up to 67%. The other eight IBs have low disclosure level, ~33%.
The low level of employees training on shariah matters is found in other countries as
reported by Haniffa and Hudaib (2007). Hence, it could infer that IBs give little attention to
the employee training in general and especially Shariah related trainings.
4.5. Zakah
All the matters discussed in the study might be insignificant compared to zakah, as
religious duty. IBs should disclose its payment as well as disclose its statement of sources and
uses. The first item included in the benchmark of the study is whether the IB is liable to pay
zakah or the owners of the IB have to pay it. Secondly, if the IB pays the zakah, it is ideal to
anticipate that the IB may provide statement of sources and the uses of zakah or perhaps IBs
rely on SAB attestation regarding the computation and distribution of Zakah.
The result indicated in Table 6 shows all IBs disclose their liability to pay the zakah.
Further analysis shows that nine banks are liable to pay the zakah except for RHB, where
shareholders pay zakah on behalf of their shareholding and clients. RHB reported in their
annual report as follows, “The Bank is not required to pay Zakat. This should be paid by
shareholders on their shareholding”.
As for statement of sources and uses of zakah, Table 6 shows that none of the IBs
surveyed in this study disclosed in their annual reports statement of sources and uses of
zakah. As for RHB, since it is not liable to pay zakah, therefore, they are not required to
provide such statement. Surprisingly, those banks combine the zakah and tax together. This
could imply that the bank did not recognized zakat payment as a religious levy. It is arguably
that IBs appear to use zakah as a public relation strategy instead of fulfilling their religious
duty as stated in the Quran such as to reduce the level of poverty in most Muslim countries
through this religious obligation.
Only BIMB disclosed SAB attestation regarding the computation and distribution of
Zakah in its annual report. Other nine IBs do not disclose such SAB role in zakat
computation and disbursement. BIMB has clearly mentioned in the 2009’s annual report of
this particular element specifically in the report of Shariah Advisory Council: The Council
Obid, Hajj, Bank Ethical Disclosure Level: Malaysian Islamics Bank 206
reviewed the financial statements of the Bank and confirmed that the financial statements and
calculation of Zakat is in compliance with the Shariah requirements.
The result appears to be consistent with prior studies in this area. It reveals that IBs
have failed to disclose how zakah funds are distributed and computed.
The study reviews the annual reports of 10 local IBs in Malaysia to explore their EDL
by adopting the disclosure benchmark from Maali et al.(2006) and Haniffa and Hudaib
(2007). This benchmark later used to compare with IBs actual disclosures in the annual
reports. (IBs ideally are expected to possess a high ethical identity because as Haniffa and
Hudaib (2007) remarked, IBs have social goals, which is equally important to their financial
goals).
The empirical findings show that IBs in Malaysia have low level of disclosure
practices. This is startling but it may be because managers of IBs are trained with the
conventional-type banks administration, thus, not fully aware of the social implications of IBs
(Maali et al. 2006). Asecond reason might be that Malaysian IBs operate in an environment
where the economy is under the domination of CBs, followed by the adoption of
conventional IFRS. All these may influence the IBs reporting practices.
There are five (5) dimensions develop in this study, namely Vision and Mission, SAB
Opinion: Involvement of Non-Permissible Activities, Qard Hassan and Employees benefit,
and Zakat. These dimensions are later breakdown into 15 elements for the benchmark of the
study. Results indicate that only six (6) IBs had disclosed the profile of SAB. However, all
the IBs in the study disclosed their commitment in operating accordingly to the shariah.
The second dimension is SAB opinion on issues whether the IB operated within the
shariah principles. The findings show that all of the IBs had SAB and they all received a
clean opinion from their Shariah supervisors. This result indicates that the role of SAB is
restricted to give only ex post opinion rather than ex ante. Only BIMB disclosed SAB’s role
of ex ante approval of the banks’ products. The unqualified report all the banks received from
their SAB did not contain detailed information as to how such conclusion is reach.
The study reveals that the bank had a very low level of qard hasan disclosure. Only
two banks have had disclose slight amounts of qard hassan in the annual report. The results
of this study are consistent with a recent study conducted by Adnan and Arifin (2010) which
concluded that IBs in Malaysia forgot the qard hasan at all.
As for Employee benefits dimension’ all 10 IBs in the study disclose information that
relates to employee remunerations and pension plans. Only BIMB discloses training on
shariah awareness and the amount spent.
For zakah dimension, the analysis indicates that nine IBs are liable to pay zakah while
RHB do not pay it as an entity but as owners. Even though IBs disclosed the amount of zakah
paid, yet they failed to disclose the statement of sources and uses of zakat. Only BIMB
disclose whether attestation from SAB or not, is the only one bank that has the most score in
the benchmark of the study.
207 Obid, Hajj, Bank Ethical Disclosure Level: Malaysian Islamics Bank
The study is subject to several limitations. Firstly, the use of content analysis could
raise more questions than answers. There is lots of subjectivity involved in such analysis
especially in terms of the determination of the quality of the information disclosed. Secondly,
the study used only annual reports for the information. Finally, the relatively small sample of
the study could make generalazability to the wider population more difficult.
For future research it is suggested that one may employ larger sample size by
including all the IBs in Malaysia or cross-country study, which may involve comparing the
IBs in different countries. Future studies may also employ a different methodology other than
reviewing just the annual reports, including questionnaire and interview to both management
and stakeholders that allow with different findings.
REFERENCES
APPENDIX
MayBank No No No No 0
Muamalat Yes No No No 25
Public IB No No No No 0
RHB IB No No No No 0
Table 6. Zakah
Statement of SAB Attestation: Disclosure
Party Liable Computation and
Banks Sources and Uses Level
for Zakah Distribution of Zakah
of Zakah (%)
Affin IB Yes No No 33
Alliance Yes No No 33
CIMB IB Yes No No 33
ECONCAP Yes No No 33
HL IB Yes No No 33
BankIslam Yes N0 Yes 67
MayBank Yes No No 33
Muamalat Yes No No 33
Public IB Yes No No 33
RHB IB Yes NA No 33