Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the zakat disclosure of Islamic banks at the global level. It is important for depositors and shareholders of Islamic banks to know whether the bank is paying zakat on their behalf or not. Additionally, disclosing the calculation method used is also necessary to eliminate uncertainties resulting from ambiguous reporting that can mislead the stakeholders. This issue becomes more obvious when considering that depositors and shareholders may have different accounts with different Islamic banks, which makes it quite confusing to have multiple ways of zakat calculation or different approaches on who is the party that pays it. This study analyzes the current practices across 13 countries and recommends best practices.

Design/methodology/approach

The objective of the paper objective is achieved through analyzing the annual reports of 34 Islamic banks in 13 countries for the years 2014 and 2019. It further quantifies the zakat disclosure by constructing a zakat disclosure index. This index considers the disclosure of four major constituents covering the amount and the responsibility for payment, the calculation method, the involvement of the Shariah board and the zakat duty on investment account holders. For further robustness, this study is further supported by content analysis measures using the zakat word count in annual reports.

Findings

The results indicate a major issue in zakat disclosure. The overall average of disclosure index is low. Most of the banks disclose limited information about zakat, such as the amount and the responsibility for payment, in their annual reports. Less than 40% of the examined banks disclose information about the role of the Shariah board in zakat calculation, and a very limited number of banks (9%) are found to disclose enough details about the zakat calculation method. Furthermore, none of the examined banks mentions the zakat due for the investment accounts. Overall, zakat disclosure of most of the banks, whether following Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions or otherwise, are found to be not up to the expected best practices.

Research limitations/implications

Among the limitations of this study is the sole dependence on annual reports of Islamic banks without considering other means that banks might be using to communicate zakat-related matters to stakeholders. Examples of such means include a website, social media and other direct or indirect marketing materials. Additionally, the results of this study shall not be overgeneralized regarding differences between countries because the sample does not include all Islamic banks in the selected country. Future research may use the proposed zakat disclosure index on a country-specific data sample.

Practical implications

The findings have significant implications as they raise a serious concern regarding the sufficiency of the Islamic banks’ disclosure about a core area of their responsibility, that is, the zakat. The index developed can be a tentative measure of zakat disclosure transparency pending further review. The result further suggests looking at the composition of members of Shariah boards to include at least one member with a sound accounting background. Zakat is a religious duty; therefore, a perceived lack of transparency on the amount, method of calculation and how the zakat is paid may affect the future injection of capital into Islamic banks.

Originality/value

An important contribution of this paper lies in the fact that the collected data is not provided in any available database. Rather, it is manually captured from the individual annual reports of reviewed Islamic banks. Further, this paper proposes an index to measure the zakat disclosure at bank and country levels.

中文翻译：

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伊斯兰银行天课披露分析

目的

本文旨在调查全球范围内伊斯兰银行的天课披露情况。对于伊斯兰银行的储户和股东来说，了解银行是否代表他们支付天课非常重要。此外，还需要披露所使用的计算方法，以消除可能误导利益相关者的含糊报告所带来的不确定性。当考虑到储户和股东可能在不同的伊斯兰银行拥有不同的账户时，这个问题变得更加明显，这使得多种天课计算方式或支付方的不同方法变得非常混乱。本研究分析了 13 个国家/地区的当前实践并推荐了最佳实践。

设计/方法论/途径

本文的目标是通过分析13个国家34家伊斯兰银行2014年和2019年的年度报告来实现的。它通过构建天课披露指数进一步量化天课披露。该指数考虑了四个主要组成部分的披露，包括支付金额和责任、计算方法、伊斯兰教法委员会的参与以​​及投资账户持有人的天课义务。为了进一步增强稳定性，本研究得到了使用年度报告中的天课字数统计的内容分析措施的进一步支持。

发现

结果表明天课披露中存在一个主要问题。披露指数总体平均值较低。大多数银行在年度报告中披露有关天课的有限信息，例如金额和付款责任。不到 40% 的接受调查的银行披露了有关伊斯兰教法委员会在天课计算中的作用的信息，并且发现只有极少数银行 (9%) 披露了有关天课计算方法的足够细节。此外，没有一家接受检查的银行提及投资账户应缴纳的天课。总体而言，大多数银行的天课披露，无论是遵循伊斯兰金融机构会计和审计组织还是其他规定，均未达到预期的最佳实践。

研究局限性/影响

这项研究的局限性之一是仅依赖伊斯兰银行的年度报告，而没有考虑银行可能用来向利益相关者传达天课相关事宜的其他方式。此类手段的示例包括网站、社交媒体和其他直接或间接营销材料。此外，本研究的结果不应过度概括国家之间的差异，因为样本并未包括所选国家的所有伊斯兰银行。未来的研究可能会在特定国家的数据样本上使用拟议的天课披露指数。

实际影响

这些调查结果具有重大意义，因为它们引起了人们对伊斯兰银行对其核心责任领域（即天课）的披露是否充分的严重担忧。制定的指数可以作为天课披露透明度的暂定衡量标准，有待进一步审查。结果进一步表明，应考虑伊斯兰教法董事会成员的组成，其中至少包括一名具有良好会计背景的成员。天课是一项宗教义务；因此，天课的数额、计算方法和支付方式缺乏透明度可能会影响未来向伊斯兰银行注资。

原创性/价值

本文的一个重要贡献在于所收集的数据没有在任何可用的数据库中提供。相反，它是从受审查的伊斯兰银行的个别年度报告中手动获取的。此外，本文提出了一个衡量银行和国家层面天课披露的指数。