Difficulties
The Islamic financial movement is, however, experiencing some difficulties. Some of these difficulties are of a teething nature- difficulties that were bound to be encountered during the initial phase of an entirely new experiment. These difficulties would undoubtedly be overcome gradually as the banks become richer in experience and larger in size. And have access to the economies of scale that large conventional banks are able to have. Some of their difficulties are due to the lack of a proper understanding of the true nature of Islamic banking among their depositors as well as their clients, and lack of proper training among their employees, most of whom come from conventional banks.
The absence of a Islamic financial market make sit difficult for these banks to employ their surplus funds, or to have access to liquidity in an Islamic manner. They are, therefore, forced to resort to the conventional money market. Most of these banks do not even have access to a lender of last resort. They are thus forced to keep larger liquidity than what conventional banks would normally keep. This adversely affects their profitability. Shared institutions (like credit rating agencies) do not exist either, thus forcing the banks to perform all the different tasks themselves. This raises their costs. These difficulties have tended to slow down their progress towards the classical Islamic financing techniques of mudârabah and mushârakah..