Chapter 9: The Criteria for Recruitment of Islamic Banking and Finance Graduates among Financial Institutions

Abstract

The establishment of Malaysia’s first Islamic bank, Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad, in July 1983 resulted in the growth of the banking industry in this country. Islamic banking products and services offered are based on the Sharia principle, which aligns with their business operations (Abdullah et al., 2015). The Malaysian government has shown serious commitment to supporting Islamic banking and finance industry growth in the global market by strengthening the Malaysian International Islamic Financial Centre (MIFC) initiative through Malaysian 10th Planning. With that, several universities have offered Islamic banking courses for undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This institution is crucial because it can meet the needs of the Islamic financial sector, which may produce 50,000 graduates from Islamic banking and finance background. However, the Islamic banking sector needs more qualified and skilled staff owing to the growing demand for Islamic banking products and services (Ahmad et al., 2017). This is because some employees have yet to graduate from Islamic banking and finance courses or have no knowledge of Islamic banking. In addition, many Islamic bank employers prefer to employ experienced workers from a conventional banking background.