Islamic Financial Products and Services Patronizing Behavior in Tatarstan:The Role of Perceived Values and Awareness

Abstract

Despite the tremendous growth shown by global Islamic financial services industry, there are Muslim minority countries that have not embraced Islamic finance yet and the Russian Federation is one of them. This research is conducted in the Republic of Tatarstan, a federal subject (part) of the Russian Federation, which has huge potential and promising future for the development of Islamic finance. The current study examines the role of perceived values and awareness among people of Tatarstan in patronizing Islamic financial products and services. The study has adopted the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to examine the factors affecting Tatarstan citizens’ behavioral intention to patronize Islamic financial products and services. The sample of 517 questionnaires was available for analysis. The data was analyzed using ‘IBM SPSS Statistics’ and ‘IBM SPSS AMOS’ computer software. ‘IBM SPSS Statistics’ was used at the initial stage to perform descriptive analysis. ‘IBM SPSS AMOS’ was employed to run Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The findings of the research show that awareness has a positive effect on attitude, and subjective norms have positive effect on intention to patronize Islamic financial products and services in Tatarstan.