Talking about Islamic Banking in South East Asia, there is always comparison between Malaysia and Indonesia. Malaysia is considered to have their Islamic banking more developed and fast growing compared to Indonesia. Does it mean Malaysia is better than Indonesia?

My friend, Dr. Ugi Soeharto has different answer. In Malaysia, the question faced by Islamic bank is Can Islamic bank do what conventional banks do? while in Indonesia, the question is more specific and somewhat underestimating: What is different Islamic bank from their conventional counterpart?

It means that Malaysian Islamic banks need only to answer yes to the question and start arranging their products similar to what is in conventional banks. The only different between their products are in the label “i” (islamic).

At the same time, Indonesian Islamic banks should provide the answer in two level. Firstly, it should have the product that similar to conventional bank, so as to answer the first question, whether Islamic banks can operate in the market. Second, it should show how different the products are from their conventional ones. Once people find no different in both products they abruptly judge that no use of Islamic bank here, since they cannot have specialty in Islamic bank. The logical consequence from this judgment is that, no noeed to go to Islamic bank and have their service.

In other word, actually people forward conflicting questions to Islamic banks. First question explore the similarity and the second one search for the difference. Certainly no one will pass this test, and neither Islamic banks will, in Indonesia.

This basic start is just an indicator how Islamic banks in Indonesia struggle to be accepted in their own community, the muslim community which form 90% of population. Compared with their counterpart in Malaysia, they are really what is called as “one man show” or “home alone”. In Malaysia, Government support is very high, from tax incentive for Islamic banking products (and finance) until special (huge) fund provided for developing Islamic banking worldwide.

With this all data, one who want to Malaysia and Indonesia is just like to compare an apple with an orange which is incomparable indeed.
God knows the best.