LAHORE, Jan 17: There is no way for analysts to measure the success of the Islamic banking in the world as no benchmark is available, says a World Bank consultant on Islamic finance.

Pakistan, Iran and Sudan have made a mummer of experiences on Islamic banking but there was a need to develop global standards for Islamic banking so that performance of this emerging sector could be determined, said Dr Zamir Iqbal during his visit to a private university here.

He said there was difference between Islamic mode of financing and interest-free banking system. About the Malaysian model of financing, he said that being the followers of Malaki or Shafie school of thought, they were quite liberal in drafting their instruments of banking as compared to people living in Iran, Sudan and Pakistan. "Some of their instruments seem quite close to interest-based economic system."

He said though the Pakistan government was closely imitating Malaysian model of Islamic banking, being Hanafi people in Pakistan were reluctant to accept these instruments.

He said Islamic financing, especially the one being done in the existing banking system, had curtailed itself only to commodity financing as nobody had worked on other instruments so far.

"Even the Islamic insurance company is yet to be launched to offer 'Tikaful' services to customer interested in having Islamic banking." Iqbal said there was also scarcity of research on this issue as only few learned people were available on this topic world wide.