Interest-free Cooperative society is introduced as a mirror of conventional cooperatives though on the principle of Islamic finance, to mobilise financial resources with the aim of promoting the socio-economic welfare of their members. There is however some restriction to the quantity of savings that could be mobilized. The study therefore assessed the determinants of savings mobilization in interest-free cooperative in Ilorin Kwara State. Data were collected with the use of questionnaire which was administered on 365 members of institution-based interest-free cooperative societies in Ilorin metropolis. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Cronbach’s alpha tests were performed to establish the validity and reliability of the research instrument. Logistic regression analysis was conducted and it was found that mode of saving, credit administration, internal governance and member’s awareness have positive effect on volume of savings mobilized and the effects are significant at 5% and 1% level of significance. The study concluded that the mode of savings, credit administration, internal governance, and members awareness affect resources mobilization of Islamic cooperatives in Ilorin metropolis. Direct deduction of savings from salaries, higher level of transparency and accountability, sensitization campaign are recommended for effective and efficient financial resources mobilization in interest-free cooperative societies.

Islamic banks in Africa and Asia have been characterised by some technical inefficiencies. The sources (managerial issues or scale of operation) of these inefficiencies still remain a problem of empirical investigation since mixed reports have been given in that regard. This study therefore investigated the sources of inefficiencies by decomposing technical efficiencies of the banks and comparing the components of Islamic banks in the low-income countries of Africa and Asia. Data were collected from annual reports of the selected banks and analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was conducted to estimate the pure technical and scale efficiencies of the banks. The study found that the inefficiency attributable to all the selected banks were due to pure technical efficiency (0.876), which was lower than the mean value of scale efficiency (0.917). That is, the inefficiencies were caused largely by managerial problems rather than operating scale. It was also found that Islamic banks in Asia were more technically efficient than those from Africa in terms of pure technical (0.920>0.827) and scale efficiencies (0.934>0.902). The study concludes that managerial issues such as insufficient competent staff, poor monitoring and so on were the causes of low efficiency attributed to Islamic Banks in Africa. It was thus recommended that Islamic banks in Africa should employ staff members who are competent with requisite knowledge of Islamic finance to improve the pure technical and overall efficiency of the banks.