مدیریت توزیع سود توسط بانک های اسلامی : تحقیق تجربی

The objective of this paper is to ascertain whether Islamic banks do in fact manage profit distributions and if so, what factors are associated with the extent of profit distribution management. The results suggest that most Islamic banks manage profit distributions, with the extent of profit distribution directly related to religiosity, financial development, asset composition, and existence of discretionary reserves, while it is inversely related to market familiarity with Islamic banking, market concentration, depositor funding reliance and the age of the Islamic bank.

Islamic banks have the implicit flexibility to manage their depositor profit distributions ex post as a result of being able to vary the management fee attributable to the shareholders. To that extent, Sundararajan (2005) finds that Islamic banks do in fact manage profit distributions towards interest rates for his limited sample of 14 banks. He derives his sample from 8 countries (not specified) over the years 2002 and 2003.3 His assertion that Islamic banks manage profit distributions relies on the strong significant correlation between market deposit interest rates and the distributions to depositors for the Islamic banks in his sample. This is in contrast to the insignificant correlation between asset returns and depositor distribution rates for the Islamic banks in his sample. While Islamic banks have an explicit contractual obligation to share profits with depositors, Sundararajan's (2005) results essentially imply that Islamic banks may face competition costs which require an implicit contractual condition between the depositors and the bank to provide distributions similar to market based deposit interest rates. This study extends Sundararajan's study by first expanding the sample size, and second, considering factors that might be related to profit distribution management. Besides being attractive economic questions by themselves, the questions of whether and why Islamic banks manage their profit distributions are interesting since the extent of profit distribution management may have a bearing on the risk outlook of the bank itself. To the extent that the bank engages in profit distribution management, it is arguably taking on more equity risk and thereby shielding investment depositors from the risk associated with the asset portfolio of the bank. This would implicitly require bank management to be more cautious about the risk profile of their investments and ensure that the shareholders’ equity is not threatened. Alternatively, if the bank is not engaging in profit distribution management, the bank is passing on equity risk to the investment depositors. Being able to pass on equity risk to the investment depositors, the bank may have heightened incentives to engage in riskier investments and thereby increase moral hazard, under the implicit assumption that investment account holders will absorb some of the losses (Cihak & Hesse, 2010).4 This setting provides the principal motivation to investigate whether Islamic banks manage their profit distributions in an enlarged sample of Islamic banks and what factors are associated with the extent to which they manage their profit distributions towards market based interest rates or away from asset returns. The extent to which they manage profit distributions to depositors will also have implications on the Islamic bank's financial stability and financial reporting incentives. This paper analyses two issues related to profit management by Islamic banks. First, the paper provides systematic evidence of the phenomenon of profit distribution management as anecdotally evidenced by Sundararajan (2005) using a full sample of Islamic banks. This objective is addressed in the results section by comparing depositor profit distributions with a range of other measures such as market deposit rates and asset return rates for each individual bank, country wise and for the aggregate sample of banks. The second objective is to ascertain the factors that are associated with variation in the extent to which depositor profit distributions are managed towards market based depositor interest rates and away from fundamental return on assets. This objective is addressed by conducting several regression analyses on an original empirical model developed in this study. The evidence gathered in this study suggests that most Islamic banks manage profit distributions, with Islamic banks in Brunei, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates demonstrating consistently lower average profit distribution management (based on Asset Spreads). In contrast, Islamic banks in Bahrain, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have consistently higher average profit distribution management (based on Asset Spreads). With the exception of banks from Bahrain, Kuwait, Turkey and Yemen, there is no evidence to suggest all Islamic banks in a specific country systematically and consistently manage profit distributions towards deposit rates and away from asset rates. No common underlying factor between these countries can potentially be found to ascertain why Islamic banks systematically manage profit distributions The results suggest that Islamic banks do manage profit distributions and such discretionary activity is directly related to religiosity, financial development, asset composition, existence of discretionary reserves, while it is inversely related to market familiarity with Islamic banking, market concentration, depositor funding reliance and the age of the Islamic bank. The paper is divided into five sections. Following introduction, Section 2 develops the theory to explain the factors associated with the variation in profit sharing, while the subsequent section develops the specific hypotheses to be tested. Section 3 discusses the research design and Section 4 provides a description and analysis of the results, while Section 5 concludes this chapter.

This study was an attempt to understand the phenomenon of profit distribution management, a discretionary activity conducted by Islamic banks which has no direct parallels for conventional banks. As a result of the profit sharing relationship with their investment depositors, Islamic banks are able to manage the extent of profits shared with their depositors based on market circumstances. The evidence gathered in this study suggests that Islamic banks may potentially be managing profit distributions. If the Asset Spread measures are considered to be the most robust, Islamic banks in Brunei, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates demonstrating consistently lower average profit distribution management (based on Asset Spreads). In contrast, Islamic banks in Bahrain, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have consistently higher average profit distribution management (based on Asset Spreads). However, if the correlation between the Asset Spread and Deposit Spread are considered, then Islamic banks in Bahrain, Kuwait, Turkey and Yemen can be considered to systematically and consistently manage profit distributions towards deposit rates and away from asset rates. There is no consistent evidence for the other countries to suggest that the Islamic banks there manage profit distributions. The most significant factors associated with profit distribution management (DEP-PDM Asset Spread) were religiosity (MUSLIM-POP), financial development (FD), market concentration (CONC), depositor reliance (DEPOSIT), and age of the Islamic bank (AGE). There is also limited support for the familiarity (FAMILIAR), asset composition (LA/TA) and discretionary reserves (RESERV) factors. While all of these factors had a definite and significant relationship with profit distribution management, the religiosity, financial development and depositor reliance factors had directional relationships that were contrary to the predictions made. These results have potential policy implications for regulators of Islamic banks and financial institutions, who may want to develop an indigenous Islamic financial system, independent of the influence of benchmark deposit rates. Since the extent of profit distribution management is directly related to the existence of discretionary reserves, the allowance given by regulators to establish such reserves might be counter-productive and may actually induce such profit distribution management activities where it did not exist before. However, such conclusions have to be tempered by the fact that the results do not indicate causality per se, and therefore reserves may have been an outcome of increased profit distribution management and not the other way around. The fact that depositor profit distribution management is inversely associated with market familiarity and depositor funding reliance suggests that regulators should encourage the dissemination of Islamic finance knowledge to the wider public and increase the investment depositor funding base of Islamic banks, to ensure lower levels of profit distribution management.