The Determinants among Muslim Contributors to Adopt Shariah Funds Decision: Evidence of Employees Provident Fund

Abstract

Malaysia is one of the world's Islamic financial centres and it is working hard to enhance Shariah governance in the Islamic financial sectors. Shariah Savings introduced on 8th August 2016 is an initiative by the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) allowing investors to determine whether or not their funds should be handled and invested according to Shariah principles. Despite the effort by the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) to promote investment in the Sharia Compliant saving, the Muslim of EPF members' is still low. Hence, increasing EPF Muslim members' investment is a major challenge. Thus, this study aimed to fulfil this gap by examining the Planned Behaviour Theory with additional variables (religiosity, investment knowledge, and risk propensity) mediated by awareness towards investment decisions among EPF Muslim contributors in Malaysia. Questionnaire surveys were utilized in a quantitative research strategy to collect data. Using purposive sampling procedures, data was collected from 295 Muslim members who stick with EPF conventional savings and analyze by using the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM)