Purpose - The aim of this study is to investigate the problems, challenges, opportunities and future prospects of Islamic banking and finance in the UK. However, this study brings forward into 3 main purposes. Firstly, to explore the development of financial institutions, products and regulatory reforms. Secondly, to find out the performance of Islamic banking institutions. Lastly, to identify the problems, challenges and Islamic banking future prospects. Research design, data, and methodology - An in-depth literature review was carried out to fulfil the research objectives. Results - The findings point out the basic problems of Islamic banking industry in UK such as unfavorable regulatory environment, unfamiliarity with the Islamic Banking System, lack of portfolio management, absence of liquidity instruments, in need of professional bankers, and blending of approach of Islamic scholars with the approach of the conventional bankers. The findings also indicate that there are greater opportunities in the UK for development and growth of Islamic financial system because Muslim community is eager to take financial products. Conclusions - It is hoped that issues pertaining to Islamic banking products can be resolved through consensus of Shariah scholars. There is need to educate the Muslim community about Islamic financial products and service.

Hand phones are standard paraphernalia among university students. Factors that motivate them to own the gadget would be of interest to both the students as well as marketers. Hand phone usage is an unexamined field in academic literature, this exploratory study attempts to investigate student purchasing motives in cellular phone markets. It also intends to know the student’s satisfaction with the different services and its future impact on socio economic changes. In this study, undergraduates (n=336) were requested to specify their purchase criteria of hand phone. The instrument used in the study to collect feedback from the respondents contains a combination of open-ended and scaled questions, and some background demographics. The study employed content analysis, Pearson’s correlation, and t-tests as the primary tools to analyze the responses. Results show that brand was rated as the most important factor in student purchase decisions. Other factors, arranged in decreasing order of importance comprise price, product quality, features, durability, availability, promotion, and post purchase service. Brand and price correlated significantly. It is also observed that there is very little difference regarding preference between brand and price in purchasing a hand phone. Marketers may formulate suitable strategies out of the findings to promote hand phones to university undergraduates in Malaysia by emphasizing at brands and price.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the volatility of both Islamic and conventional stock market in Indonesia with the aim of identifying the most appropriate model for risk management practice. The study considers GARCH as a genre of model to measure the volatility of stock market movement. The results support the view that each model shows specific volatility from both Islamic and conventional stock market in Indonesia. In Islamic stock market, volatility is affected by exchange rate and money supply (M1) but not interest rate as interest is prohibited in Islam. However, interest rate is found as a principal factor that affects volatility of conventional stock market. The outcomes of this paper are of particular significance to policy makers, as it provides guidelines to maintain economic health. Furthermore, the findings may assist practitioners to understand the consequences of macroeconomic factors such as exchange rate, money supply and interest rate, which are very crucial for the market stability of Indonesian stock market. The paper enhances the understanding of stock market volatility and proposes guidelines risk management practices.