Few parts of the global financial sector can claim to have continued growing in the past two years, but Islamic financial institutions recorded an aggregate increase of 64% in their assets according to The Banker's Top 500 Islamic Financial Institutions rankings. With rapid expansion, however, comes the growing pains of ensuring that processes run smoothly, particularly for the high-volume retail banking segment.
For Islamic financial institutions, this means ensuring strict adherence to sharia (Islamic law). This is a tall order in a relatively new industry, especially one where the number of widely recognised sharia scholars who also have the necessary grasp of a fast-changing financial sector remains small.
