The sensational growth of the industry in recent years combined with high levels of liquidity has meant that Islamic banks have not needed to fight for funding or ideas. Newer entrants to the industry have merely tended to copy the strategies they see being successfully pursued by their more established rivals.
If I may say so, there is a high degree of “cloning” of business models. As a result, a very high percentage of Islamic banks have a strategy that is heavily weighted towards real estate and asset finance. They tend to be project-driven and do not have a steady source of “bread and butter” revenue to tide them over any downturns in economic activity.