Influential Factors on Profitability of Islamic Banks: Evidence from Sudan

Profitability of Islamic banks has a significant effect on banks current and future decisions that do not only associate with shareholders and management, but also for various types of stakeholders. Despite that, scholars are not yet in agreement on common determinants of profitability in banking industry. This study aims to investigate the effect of bank-specific and industry characteristics along with macroeconomic variable (the inflation) on the profitability of a sample of 10 Islamic banks in Sudan. The study applied descriptive statistics, Persons’ correlation and multiple regression analysis on secondary data in order to determine the relationships and degree of significant of the independent variables to profitability. The profitability has been measured by two models; as return on assets (ROA) and net profit margin (NMP). The results reveal that bank capitalization (EQTA), operational cost efficiency (OCOI), investment in short-term securities (SECA) and inflation (INF) variables are significantly affecting the profitability of Islamic banks in Sudan. In contrary, the deposit-size of the bank (as market share) is not a significant determinant of banks’ profitability. Furthermore, the results indicate that quality of credit loan (NPL) is highly significant to NPM, while it is insignificant to ROA.