The Saudi Central Bank or SAMA has launched two programs to augment Islamic banking through research and translation, local reports have said.
They are the Islamic Finance Research Support Program and the Islamic Finance Research Translation Program.
The support program is expected to give researchers the opportunity to develop and make scientific solutions and contributions to advance the qualitative development of Islamic finance.
The research areas will include Islamic finance, Islamic banking, Islamic insurance, banking risk management, financial technologies in the Islamic finance sector, Sharia governance, and other areas related to the Islamic finance sector.
The program will reportedly offer two tracks to researchers in the Saudi Arabia and abroad.
Track I is expected to include beginner researchers working on their graduation theses for Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD degrees.
The program will reportedly provide such researchers with the support needed to complete and improve the quality of their papers. Such researchers can only participate as individuals.
Track II is expected to include professional researchers who have research experience in Islamic finance and have previously published papers in international journals.
Such researchers can participate in the program as individuals or as members of a joint research team that includes one researcher from SAMA, said the local reports.
Each research paper selected in Track I will reportedly win a cash reward of SAR 20,000 (a little more than $5,300), and each research paper selected in track II will win a cash reward of SAR 40,000 (more than $10,600).
Moreover, a cash prize of SAR 50,000 (a little more than $13,300) each is expected to be awarded to the top two winning research papers.
The translation program is expected to cover the same research areas as the support program, said the local reports.
A review committee will select the submitted research papers for translation, and will award cash prizes to the top 20 papers.
The top 10 papers will win a cash prize of SAR 10,000 (around $2,7000) each, and the other 10 will win a cash prize of SAR 5,000 (a little more than $1,300) each, said the local reports.