Leaders’ Question Time: The State of the Industry

We pose a series of high-level strategic questions to senior representatives of Islamic financial services industry. How can Islamic finance and investment create a genuinely competitive advantage in key areas such as retail, commercial, corporate banking and wealth management? Are there inhibitions and limitations the industry needs to acknowledge and overcome? Does Islamic finance want to become mainstream, or are we content with the plausible alternative label? What’s really working in financial technology, and who ultimately benefits: financial institutions, consumers, or both? Is the success of neo-banks inevitable, and how will they change the market? Having witnessed the remarkable growth of ESG and sustainable finance, on reflection, are there things Islamic finance could have done differently?