A Study of Awareness of Islamic Banking in Oman

Research Objective: The Islamic Banking came in existence in the year 2012 in Oman. Oman was the last country of GCC countries to implement Islamic Banking. Although the Shariah compliance concept is not new, it has not developed as significantly as other financial services in Oman. The reason behind this is the lack of understanding of terms and operations of Islamic banks. The reason behind this is a lack of understanding of Islamic banks' terms and operations. This survey has revealed the awareness and understanding of Salalah people regarding the services and activities of Islamic banking. Design/methodology/approach: In this study descriptive statistics, factor analysis and logistic regression approaches to analyze the expectations of customers regarding Islamic banking in Oman. In this research, a sample of 102 people that includes people of different age groups, different profession and occupation were selected. They were mainly the customers of the Islamic bank. The religious commitments of customers, understanding of Islamic banking; products are the variables that have been evaluated. Findings: The findings show that Islamic banking awareness is very low among Omanis, despite the fact that the perceived value of Islamic banking is significant. The study also identifies some of the challenging issues for Banking system in Oman, such as a lack of understanding about Islamic banking, competitive pressures from conventional banking, and non-Muslims' unwillingness to adopt Islamic banking. Among all the participants, the knowledge and use of Islamic banking products by consumers is very weak. Almost all customers accept that interest in Islam is forbidden, but they consider most of the Islamic banks are not to be consistent with Shariah. The findings suggest that the key factors of Islamic banking are religious commitment, perception of Islamic banking. Research limitations/implications – Given the fact that this study uses a relatively small sample, limiting to only one city of the country generalization of the findings needs to be done with caution.