An investigation of the relationship between sukuk and the performance of banks of Pakistan

This study investigated the relationship among Islamic bonds (sukuk) and the performance of Islamic Banks (IB’s) of Pakistan for the period of 2008-2017 by using panel data analysis. The study used two stages approach. At the first stage, the profitability and liquidity of banks had been measured by calculating financial ratios. These ratios were than further used in regression analysis to examine whether a relationship exists between sukuk and the bank’s profitability and liquidity. The study found a significant positive relationship among sukuk and the liquidity of IB’s. While, the results showed significant but negative relationship between sukuk and profitability of IB’s. Based on the findings of the study, it coul be concluded that sukuk has an important role in enhancing the liquidity of IB’s but it has adverse impact on the profitability of IB’s of Pakistan. Thus, the emergence of sukuk market may pose threats to the profitability of the IB’s of Pakistan.


Introduction
The origin of sukuk was firstly introduced by Malaysia in 2002 when it issued first Islamic bond with the name of government-backed sukuk (Braima, 2017:85). In May 2003, it was officially defined by Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) as the certificates having equal value which represent undivided share's ownership in tangible assets as well as legal rights and services (Mohamed, Masih, & Bacha, 2015:233). It started growing in 2005 when there was an increase in the prices of oil all over the world (Reuters, 2016).
The word "sukuk" also known as Islamic bond or Islamic investment certificate is drawn from Arabic word "sakk" meaning a Shariah compliant bond or security that enables the investors to avoid investment in conventional bonds or securities (Zulkhibri, 2015:237).
They are good for the investors who avoid investing in conventional securities because of religious restrictions (Yesuf, 2016). Sukuk are basically documents of debt that governments and organizations issue to borrow a certain amount of money from bondholders (Elhaj, Muhamed, & Ramli, 2015). It can be defined as a financial instrument that helps the market players to get a large amount of capital or cash from the investors in the market through the development of various structures of sukuk (Razak, Saiti, & Dinc, 2018). They have the characteristics which differentiate them from conventional securities (Lahsasna, Hassan, & Ahmad, 2018). Now, sukuk has become one of the strongest segments and is considered an attractive financial instrument for the Islamic financial institutions. They are becoming important financial instruments not only for the Muslim but also for the non-Muslim countries of the world (Zawya, 2013:22). Both the Muslim and non-Muslim countries such as Nigeria, South Africa in Africa, Morocco, France, Kazakhstan in Central Asia, United Kingdom in Europe and Brunei in East Asia are becoming more interested in using sukuk as an alternative of conventional bonds to raise their capital/finance. For this purpose they have revised their regulations and laws to make it possible the sukuk issuance. Some other countries are also working to make it easy to issue Islamic bonds (Zulkhibri, 2015:237); (Ahmed, Islam, Yousif, & Alabdullah, 2014). The fund management industry including Islamic Capital Market is positively influenced by increase in the use of sukuk for capital rising (Alam, Hassan, & Haque, 2013:22).
One main reason for rapid emergence of sukuk market is that it is a Shariah compliant security which is the main feature of the sukuk (Ahmed, Islam, Yousif, & Alabdullah, 2014). Other main reason is that sukuk are the major source of competitive advantage as they have targeted the market segment which is not targeted by rivals yet (Ahmad, Daud, & Kefeli, 2012:127). Sukuk are considered an important tool to manage the firm's liquidity and the fresh fund's mobilization which is another major reason of the emergence of sukuk (Vishwanth & Azmi, 2009:58).
In Pakistan, it was issued for the first time in 2005 when Pakistan issued an international sovereign sukuk of 600 million. This sukuk offered semiannually floating rate of return and was based on Master Iajra agreement. While, it was issued in Pakistan's domestic sukuk market for the first time in 2006. Since then Pakistan has issued sukuk with the amount of 695 billion. The sukuk market has helped the IB's of Pakistan in diversifying their asset mix as it provided them an attractive instrument for investment in addition of improving IB's earnings as well as profitability (Alvi, et al., 2014).
Despite the rapid emergence of sukuk issuance in global market, there are limited researches conducted on this topic (Smaoui & Khawaja, 2016:1501 particularly in Pakistan.
This research is one of the few academic researches on the sukuk in context of Pakistan.
This study has been designed to uncover the relationship between Islamic bonds (sukuk) and the performance of the IB's of Pakistan.
To investigate the relationship between sukuk and bank's performance, the following two questions have been developed; First, whether the is any relationship between sukuk and bank's profitability, and second, whether there is any relationship between sukuk and liquidity. This is the first study which investigates the relationship among Islamic securitization and the bank's profitability and liquidity in context of Pakistan. Said, (2011:65) investigated the impact of using sukuk on the Islamic bank's performance during the period of financial crises of 2007-2008 by taking the profitability of Malaysian's banking sector.
His investigation found no significant impact of sukuk on the profitability of Malaysian banks. Razak, Saiti, & Dinc, (2018)  from the banks and the information asmetry is also high to access the conventional debt.
Ahmed, Islam, Yousif, & Alabdullah, (2014) worked on the significance of pricing and rating mechanism of Islamic bonds. According to them sukuk are going to become more comprehensive as well as credible financial instruments just because of their compliance with Islamic principles. This will promote the economic growth too. The current study is aimed to investigate the relationship between Islamic bonds and Islamic bank's profitability and liquidity using a sample of IB's of Pakistan for the year 2008-2017. This study is intended to contribute to the growing literature on Islamic securitization by testing the following hypothesis; H 1 There is a significant positive relationship between sukuk and bank's profitability.
H 2 There is a significant positive relationship between sukuk and bank's liquidity.
The hypothesis mentioned above is illustrated in figure 1 shown below;

Data and methodology:
This study is descriptive in nature which follows quantitative research design. In this study, we investigated the relationship between sukuk and performance of the banks of Pakistan by using the panel regression analysis. Statistical package for social sciences has been used for the data analysis. The full-fledged IB's of Pakistan that are using sukuk have been selected as a sample for the study. The list of selected banks is given below;  (Akhtar, 2007).
We extracted the data through secondary sources using the published annual financial statements for the year of 2008-2017 of the selected banks and thus it is cross sectional study which covers the range of years. It may also consider time series data. The annual statements have been taken from the official websites of the selected banks. Financial ratios of selected banks have been used for the purpose of analysis as according to Said (2011:65) financial ratio analysis is considered most convenient as well as beneficial instrument to measure the firm's performance. The total value of sukuk has been calculated as a percentage of total assets of the selected banks. This value was further used in regression analysis.
Profitability and liquidity of the selected banks have been used as an indicator of bank's performance in which profitability is measure by net profit margin, return on assets, return on equity and return on capital employed and liquidity is measured by current ratio, net loan to total deposit ratio and net loans to total assets ratio while the value of sukuk has been used as an independent variable of the study. An explanation of the variables used in the study is given below. • Sukuk NA Sukuk/Total assets Source: (Said, 2011); (G'itman & Zutter, 2012); (Khan & Siddiqui, 2018); (Bibi & Mazhar, 2019) Data analysis and discussions: Descriptive statistics: Thus, the normality of the data has been confirmed through the descriptive statistics.   This means that an increase in the value of sukuk leads to the increase in the bank's liquidity. This is due to significant positive correlation between sukuk and the liquidity of IB's. While at the same time, the results show a significant but negative relationship between sukuk and bank's profitability. This means that the profitability of banks is negatively affected by any change in the value of sukuk.

Results of hypotheses testing:
The results of correlation matrix have helped to prove the assumptions of the study.
The explanation of the working hypothesis of the study is given below in table 7. There is a significant positive relationship between Sukuk and bank's profitability.

Regression Rejected
The results of the regression shows that issuance of Islamic bonds is negatively correlated with the profitability of IB's. This means that increase in issuance of Islamic bonds have adverse impact on the profitability of the IB's of Pakistan.
H 2 There is a significant positive relationship between Sukuk and bank's liquidity.
Regression Accepted The results of the regression shows that issuance of Islamic bonds is positively correlated with the liquidity of IB's. This means that issuance of Islamic bonds leads to increase in the liquidity of the IB's of Pakistan. It helps the banks to provide liquidity.

Conclusion
This study examined the relationship between sukuk and the performance of the IB's of Pakistan by taking six full-fledged Islamic banks of Pakistan as a sample for the study. The time period of last ten years 2008-2017 has been considered for this study. The results reveal that issuance of sukuk has significant positive relationship among sukuk and liquidity while, a significant but negative correlation among sukuk and profitability of IB's of the Pakistan. Sukuk is a significantly important source to provide bank's liquidity. The findings of the study are significantly important for the policy makers of Islamic Banking system of Pakistan because a well-developed sukuk market may pose threats to the profitability of IB's because an increase in sukuk issuance adversely affects the bank's profitability. The findings have contributed to the existing literature of (Islamic bonds) sukuk in a way that this research is the first study which have investigated the relationship between sukuk and IB's of Pakistan.