The evidence on demand forsharia-compliant financial services is mixed. On the onehand, IFC-funded studies showed relatively high demand,while results from Findex showed that financial exclusiondue to religious reasons was minimal (Demirguc-Kunt,Klapper, and Randall 2013). One of the reasons behind thesecontradictory messages could be the survey instrumentsthemselves: perhaps the issue is not so much what peoplewant but how they were asked. For example, if you askparticipants why they do not use borrowing or savingsproducts, their responses may include ‘they are tooexpensive’ or ‘they are too far away’ even if the realreason is something more nuanced, such as intra-householdbargaining issues. Similarly, if you ask Muslims if theyprefer an interest-bearing loan or a noninterest-bearingloan, it might not be surprising that they would choose thenoninterest-bearing loan, perhaps because they want todemonstrate piety, or maybe because they assume it means ano-cost loan.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
