The development of banking in particular, and the financial system as a whole, is associated with many transformations and transformations that relate not only to certain aspects of the activities of financial institutions, but also to the processes of forming new models for organizing financial transactions. One of these models is the Islamic system of organizing financial activities, which has been actively developing over the past 30 years. However, the question of comparing Islamic finance and the traditional approach to organizing banking activities in terms of their efficiency, stability and liquidity remains open. This study is aimed at identifying and systematizing the main approaches to the comparative assessment of the effectiveness of the two models of financial activity. As a result of the study, it was revealed that the Islamic bank has both differences from traditional banking institutions, which is associated with the specifics of individual states and the architecture of national banking systems, and similar identical characteristics, which indicate an insignificant difference in the efficiency and sustainability of the two models.