Comparative Efficiency Study between Islamic and Traditional Banks

Islamic banking caught attention due to its resilience to the significant shocks that hit the economy in late 2008. This research aims to evaluate the efficiency of a sample of 66 banks including both Islamic and traditional banks in various countries ranging from Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Emirates, Sudan, Turkey, Bahrain and Jordan throughout 2009-2014. This research aims at identifying which banking regime proves to be more efficient and its significance using Financial Ratio Analysis (FRA), composed of cost efficiency, revenue efficiency and profit efficiency ratios along with the One-way ANOVA test. The impact of efficiency of the performance of the banks in terms of Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) is also evaluated through multiple regression analysis. Lastly, inflation’s effect on the different banking efficiency measures will be tested using regression analysis. The findings indicate that the traditional banking system is superior in terms of cost, revenue and profit efficiencies, furthermore, the results of the multiple regression analysis on the banks’ return on assets and return on equity imply that the efficiency of Islamic banks have more influence on their profitability compared to their traditional counterparts. Inflation had minimal effect on the efficiency of both banking system. The overall results imply the superiority of traditional banks to the relatively new banking system.