ISLAMIC FINANCE RESEARCHES
Year:2019 | Volume:8 | Issue:1 (15) |Papers Count:8

Numerous studies have been conducted about Iranian banking system and various dimensions of this phenomenon have been investigated; yet these studies have not concentrated on the rationale behind the policies and actions of those involved in the Iranian banking system. This study describes the rationale behind three major actors of Iranian banking system, namely the government, banks (private and public) and customers (retail and corporate). Using a multi-layer analysis, it has been tried to portray the blind spots in the country's banking system. In order to explore the relationships, 25 open interviews have been conducted with experts from different influential groups involved in the system. After a three-layered classification and analysis of these, the dominant atmosphere of the banking interactions and the existing complex problems have been explained. At the end, the areas of policy-making for improving the current situation have been determined. Validation of the results has been done through the focal group.

Among the most important functions of an efficient Islamic financial system is to support the real sector of the economy. Such a system must work to strengthen the real sector of the economy and continuously seek to respond to its basic needs. One of the most important ways to achieve this goal is to design and use proper and efficient financial tools to finance companies and related projects. Tools such as bonds, mortgage bonds, and murabaha bonds are among the tools designed and published for this purpose. To design an efficient Islamic finance tool that addresses all aspects such as financial planning, legal and Islamic jurisprudential considerations, risk management, tax considerations and financial reporting, using an appropriate research method could be helpful. The method of logical research based on analogy (axiomatic) is one of these methods that helps researchers to extract the basic principles of designing financial instruments and also to design appropriate financial instruments.

Nowadays, with the development of electronic social networks and Web 2. 0, a more suitable environment is provided to help the needy. And the institutions engaged in charity should try to improve both the quantity and quality of their services by increasing their familiarity and use of these new capacities. One of these is crowdfunding. Charitable organizations can develop or use crowdfunding platforms, to expose the difficulties and needs of their target audience in the form of a specific plan to the public and subsequently ask for the people’ s contributions to meet those needs. Today, several basic models are being used for crowdfunding, namely donation, reward, pre-orders, borrowing and stocks or profit and loss sharing. With some of these models, especially donation and reward, we can practice crowdfunding for charity. It should be noted that crowdfunding is an agile way by which money is collected from a large number of small donors instead of few people with large amount of money. This could lead to the spread of the culture of charity and its etiquette in society. This article first examines the practice of crowdfunding with a descriptive/analytical method and then explains the use of this model for attracting donors’ contributions. The legal components of this model have been defined by using contracts of mandate and gift (hiba). Finally, after mentioning the cultural implications of the presented model in the society, we have referred to some other benefits of it.

Thirty years after establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran’ s usury – free banking system, there are many ambiguities about its success. After investigating sharia-related issues of usury-free banking system based on nominate contracts, it was observed that: banking structures and mechanisms do not have the capabilities to execute the contracts; actions taken by the designers, policy makers and executives of this system to confront the mentioned challenges may be categorized into two groups: First, the continuation of the banking system based on nominate contracts and correction of the current situation; second, moving towards a different paradigm. This article concentrates on the second solution and explains a new paradigm named “ bank contract” . Also, the currency used in the early years of Islam was the real money whereas the world’ s present banking system is using fiat money which has its own regulations, hence the necessity of providing new definition of the state money and analyzing the existing banking and market systems based on that. Finally, as banking and its functions in their modern sense didn’ t exist in the early years of Islam and have to be recognized as a novel issue, the relationship between depositors and the bank and the relationship between the latter and receivers of facilities need a contract definition that goes with “ bank contract” . Based on this study, usury-free banking system based on nominate contracts that now act as the underlying trend in the usury-free operational law, is not suitable for executing banking operations.

Financing businesses has always been a major concern for entrepreneurs and governments. In the recession, firms cannot usually receive their claims in cash, and the firms’ liquidity problems could lead to the suspension and reduction of employment and economic growth. The main subject of this paper is creating efficient and specialized institutions for receivables discounting in the country. Here, by considering debt discounting, we have designed a specialized entity for receivables discounting i. e. "Discounting Investment Fund Conforming with Shi'a Jurisprudence". Due to the increasing long-term trades in the recession, the need for discounting different types of receivables and the remarkable volume of discounting in other countries, research is needed to establish such institutions. The method of this research is descriptive/ analytical and data collection is based on library studies and questionnaires. First, by library research, we have studied institutions responsible for collecting the debts and have described the related concepts and then have explained Discounting Investment Fund. Sharia studies include comparing Imamiah jurisprudents’ views on discounting with entities and relations involved in the Fund. To validate the operational model, a questionnaire was designed and experts’ opinions in this regard were collected. As the results show, about 80 percent of the experts agree or strongly agree with the researcher’ s suggestions and solutions.

In recent years, Islamic finance instruments have remarkably developed in Iran’ s capital market. One of the most common developed instruments in this area is salaf sukuk. This instrument has been issued by using different operational models and maturity and settlement of the price in maturity. One fundamental problem we face is the vast issuance and expansion of salaf sukuk market, observance of the market price and correct evaluation of that. This article has used binomial tree method logic as an accepted valuation method in conventional finance to evaluate and price salaf sukuk. In this article, we introduce the general model of salaf sukuk with embedded call and put options and without embedded option. And then after the presentation of operational models of this sukuk, and using binomial tree valuation method, we design a pricing model for this sukuk with and without embedded call and put options. In this model, we price the sukuk by predicting the price of underlying asset in maturity and discount them. In the second model that contains embedded call and put option, we price the sukuk by predicting the price of underlying asset in maturity and evaluate the exercising or not exercising the options, predict the option value in maturity and then discount them.

The practice of purchasing shares by the same company is forbidden according to Article 198 of the amended Commercial Code. Pursuant to Article 28 (par. B) of the Act on Removing Barriers to Competitive Production and Improving Financial System of the State passed in April 21st, 2015, the generality of the above-mentioned prohibition was repealed and hence this practice has been legalized under the name of “ Treasury Shares” for the companies listed on the Stock Exchange or OTC markets if they comply with certain conditions. Although the legislature has accepted treasury shares (without giving any definition of that), this legal concept is subject to numerous legal and regulatory challenges. The controversial issue is the analysis of the shares’ nature and the correlation between the shares and the company; since in treasury stocks, it is the company which acts as the contractual party with the shareholder. It seems that only by regarding the share as a tangible asset could we justify treasury shares, and other perspectives have failed to do so. In this paper, various points of view have been examined in regard to shares’ nature by an analytical-descriptive method and its impact on the treasury shares’ analysis has been observed, and on that basis, we have enumerated the treasury shares’ features.

Islamic treasury bills are new financial instruments which the government introduced in 1392 to settle private creditors' claims from the government. These types of documents, considered debt securities, are means of compensating for government deficits in the short run in other countries. In Iran, two Islamic treasury bills have been introduced. The first type is used to settle private contractors' claims from the government and this is not to be confused with conventional treasury bills and those employed in pre-revolution Iran to compensate for the government's budget deficit. In contrast, there is the second type of Islamic treasury bills used to cover temporary budget deficits of the government functionally similar to the conventional ones. In Islamic jurisprudence, the question is whether the first type treasury bills can pay extra to creditors due to their delay in paying off their debts. Furthermore, identifying the legal nature of the basic contract of issuing Islamic treasury bills and its comparison with its similar entities such as treasury securities clearing can clarify the comprehensiveness of the regulations governing this type of securities, the rights and obligations of the contract parties and its implications. In this research, the above questions are examined and some amendments are proposed about the basic laws for issuing these documents.