FAITH, FINANCE, AND CULTURE: DETERMINANTS OF ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ACCEPTANCE OF ISLAMIC BANKING AMONG PAKISTAN’S MAJOR ETHNIC GROUPS

Abstract

Islamic Banking has shown promising growth over the last couple of decades specifically in the Muslim world. Pakistan being one of the most populous Muslim countries has gained the attention of Islamic banking a lot. Pakistan has four major ethnic groups namely, Punjabis , Sindies , Baluchis and Pukhtoon. Each of these Ethnics groups has distinct traits and attitude towards different things. Keeping this thing in mind the current study focuses on the attitude of the said ethnic groups towards Islamic banking. For this purpose a sample size of 50 respondents from each ethnic group has been used for the purpose of data collection for the study through an adopted questionnaire. Simple regression analysis has been used for testing the hypotheses of the study. The findings reveal that Pukhtoon and Baluchis consider the factor religion and social pressure the most while going for Islamic banking. On the other hand Punjabis and Sindies consider Cost-benefit analysis and costumers services the most while going for Islamic banking.

Key words: Islamic Banking, Ethnic Groups and Customer attitude.