In recent years, double-digit profit and asset growth have become the norm for many Islamic financial institutions. This blistering trajectory is partly the consequence of the industry’s relative youth. But it also reflects the massive and largely untapped demand for sharia-compliant financial services around the world. With the most populous Muslim majority countries remaining underserved by bank and non-bank financial institutions, there is still some way to go before the industry achieves any real sense of maturity.
To get there, Islamic financial institutions are increasingly turning to digital innovations. The recent appearance of a new wave of digital pioneers is an encouraging testament to this market trend, one that is beginning to reshape the way in which Islamic finance is evolving. As most sharia-compliant institutions are relatively young, they have a unique opportunity to harness and benefit from digital innovation in a way that more established conventional players do not.
