There is no doubt that Islamic banking is now a global phenomenon. With presence in over 60 countries, Islamic banking has steadily evolved overtime to dealing with whole gamut of financial services, including: leasing of assets, bonds (sukuk), structured products and wealth management. It has indeed, grown rapidly in the past five years; total assets of the 500 largest banks grew on year by almost 29% in 2009, to an estimated US$1.3 trillion (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2011).

In considering the merit of Islamic banking in the context of Nigeria, we need to consider demography. The current Muslim population in Nigeria is about 78 million representing about 50.4% of the total population according to 2009 Pew Research Centre estimates. Nigeria has the sixth largest Muslim population in the world. Despite this demographic standing, Nigerian Muslims are most financially marginalized and excluded not just due to unavailability of non-interest banking, but because majority of them are the poorest, and, hence, lack the requisite credit worthiness to engage the modern financial economy.

Read the complete story (Some news sites require registration)