Shafinar Ismail

A Comparative Analysis of Conventional and Shari’ah for Residential Mortgage-backed Securities☆

The underlying objective of the study is to testify that Shari’ah residential Mortgage Backed Security (MBS) performs better than conventional issued by Cagamas with the equal issuance year, rating grades and maturity period. As a preliminary case study of Cagamas, the comparative financial performance for both Shari’ah and conventional MBS is measured by key financial ratios in terms of profitability, capitalization and debt coverage for one year before, during the year and one year after its each issuance, and key performance indicators. Interestingly, the initiation of Shariah MBS has demonstrated cheaper financing costs to Cagamas as an originator and much better investment returns to investors. Therefore, the findings support past studies on benefits of conventional asset securitization and interestingly verifying that Shari’ah MBS performs better than its conventional MBS for equal originator, rating and tenure.

A Suggested Model for Studying Technopreneurial Intention in Malaysia

Technology entrepreneurship or technopreneurship is a future trend in the era of industrial revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0). Technopreneurship requires innovative, young and information-communication technology (ICT) savvy individuals. Many countries around the world, including Malaysia, has put in a lot of efforts to develop entrepreneurial skills among youngsters especially the students. However, developing competitive young technopreneurs remains challenging in Malaysia. For instance, Malaysians scored low in several entrepreneurial behaviors and attitudes identified by Global Entrepreneurial Monitor (GEM). Furthermore, not many Malaysians have started new businesses and the country recorded a low and declining early-stage entrepreneurship rate. Moreover, university students were not showing great interest in becoming entrepeneurs during thier tertiary eduation. The future of IR 4.0 is unpredictable and full of challenges. Thus, the unattended issue of developing young and competitive technopreneurs will affect the ways Malaysians confront the unknown future. In the entrepreneurship literature, technological capability aspects and psychological aspects such as entrepreneurial orientaion (EO) and entrepreneurial intention are under-researched. Therefore, based on Bandura’s self-efficacy theory and individual EO (IEO) concept, this study proposes a model to explain the direct and indirect influence of ICT self-efficacy and IEO on technopreneurial intention. The potential contribution of this study is two-fold. Literally, it develops a new model for investigating technopreneurial intention. Practically, it provides insights on the implementation of policies in developing competitive entrepreneurial graduates, creating technology innovative individuals and transforming Malaysia into a knowledge economy. It also identifies the types of ICT capabilities that are crucial in developing innovative and entrepreneurial human capital. Additionally, it helps to strengthen and increase the particiaption of youngsters in the economy through technology entrepreneurial activities.

Empirical Investigation on Attitude towards Personal Loans Borrowing

In Malaysia, people enjoy various benefits provided by government such as first housing loan, medical benefit, various incentives and others. Even they obtain a lot of benefits; however, the statistics shows that the household debt keep increasing as the ratio of household debt to GDP of Malaysia increased from 62.7 percent in 2008 to 76.6 percent in 2011 and 84.6 percent in 2017. In addition, a debt service ratio of 30 percent is acceptable; however, the Malaysian household debt service ratio was 9.1 percent in 2006, rose to 49.0 percent in 2009 and dropped slightly to 47.8 percent in 2010. This indicates that approximately half of a household’s income used to pay their debts. As a result, after paying off the debt, the balance to spend on education, transport, food, and for emergencies become smaller. Additionally, an investigation of the ratio of household debt to disposable income, Malaysian ratio is 140.4 percent, and is identified as one of the highest in the world. It indicates that the loans taken are on average 1.4 times more than household income for each household in Malaysia. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to investigate the determinants that contribute to person’s borrowing loans; however, this study focus on the borrowing personal loans as it is one of main contributor to increase the household debt. Five determinants are identified which are as follows: knowledge about personal loans, media awareness, and perceptions toward personal loans, family influence and religious/ethic belief. Questionnaires were distributed to the 100 respondents. The sampling procedure adopted was stratified random sampling. The data obtained were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 which involves scale reliability, descriptive and regression analysis. The result indicates that media awareness and religious/ethic belief becomes the important determinants that influence the personal loans borrowing. Moreover, religious/ethic belief is found to be the best predictor that influences the person’s borrowing the personal loans. This study advances current knowledge by adding alternative insights to determinants of borrowing personal loans.

Developing Primary Market Spread and Measuring Financial Performance of Staff Housing Government Loans

This research aims to examine the determinants of primary market spread and measure financial performance of Cagamas as its case study. Ordinary least square method and regression analysis are applied for the study period of 2004–2012. The result shows that three determinants influence or contribute to the primary market spread that are statistically significant for Cagamas, and its financial performance shows that it is resilient during 2007–2008 US subprime crisis. In fact, Cagamas shows rising profits and dividends in the period of study. As such, this study testifies the success of Cagamas as an intermediary between long-term investors and lenders in the Malaysian mortgage market.

Attitudes and Perceptions of Malay Muslim Students Towards Educational Loan Repayment: A Qualitative Approach

This study investigates the attitudes and perceptions on educational loan repayment amongst Malay Muslims in Malaysia. Researches in the realm of educational loans have identified several factors contributing to defaults and repayments. These include the characteristics of students as they begin college, such as family income, race/ethnicity and students’ college experiences in terms of the type of institution, field of study and educational outcomes. However, no studies have so far explored the attitudes and perceptions on educational loan repayment amongst Malay Muslims. The study adopts a qualitative methodology that involves focus groups and semi-structured interviews. The respondents are the final-year degree students in one public university in Malaysia. The results show that attitudes and perceptions have influenced educational loan repayment amongst Malay Muslims.

Sense of Community Among Malay Customers: Evidence from Western Food Outlets in Malaysia Using Structural Equation Modelling Approach (SEM)

Malay customers are becoming western food lovers nowadays. Malay consumers contribute to the nation’s economy; thus, the survival of the food industry and its longevity prompted the current investigation. The central issue of this research is to unravel empirically the effects of antecedents on customer’s experience and subsequently examined its effect on their sense of community. Creating customer experience that is synonymous with a particular brand is becoming increasingly recognized as a vital driver of sense of community. This paper aims to address the gaps by empirically investigating the impact of customer’s experience on sense of community. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed through store intercept at selected western food restaurants such as Starbucks, Kenny Rogers and Nando’s. Two hundred fifty useable data from Malay consumers were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) procedure. Several interesting findings are confirmed: (1) service quality is not a significant predictor of customer’s experience; (2) customer’s experience has a positive effect on sense of community. These findings have important implications for consumer behaviour literature and retail industry.

Pre and post subprime mortgage crisis: An empirical analysis in Malaysia

In view of the vast developments that have occurred in financial markets since the introduction of the asset securitization in 1986, it recognizes the importance of developing a comprehensive capital framework for asset securitization, including both traditional forms and synthetic forms of securitization. This research aims to examine the determinant primary market spread. Least square method and regression analysis are applied for the study period 2004–2012. The result shows one determinants in internal regression model influence or contribute to the primary market spread and are statistically significant in developing the securitization in Malaysia. It can be concluded that maturity significantly contribute to the determinant primary market spread in internal regression model and debt and crisis significant in external regression model.