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This conceptual paper exclusively focused on how artificial intelligence (AI) serves as a means to identify a target audience. Focusing on the marketing context, a structured discussion of how AI can identify the target customers precisely despite their different behaviors was presented in this paper. The applications of AI in customer targeting and the projected effectiveness throughout the different phases of customer lifecycle were also discussed. Through the historical analysis, behavioral insights of individual customers can be retrieved in a more reliable and efficient way. The review of the literature confirmed the use of technology-driven AI in revolutionizing marketing, where data can be processed at scale via supervised or unsupervised (machine) learning.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a highly evolved area of computer science that strives to create intelligent machines that can replicate certain human behaviour without its irrationalities for better predictability and consistency. Advanced AI that utilizes machine learning makes it possible for machines to learn from previous data (experience), adjust to new inputs (instructions) and perform tasks through updated algorithms. Through sophisticated algorithms, modern AI systems can be trained to accomplish specific tasks by processing large amounts of data, obtaining insights and recognizable patterns in the data to act upon. As such AI has become a hot topic, with much interest on its advantages to the highly regulated financial services industry.

New technological innovation has incorporated frontier technologies in transforming the way we access and use existing products and services. The economy is becoming increasingly disrupted by revolutionary enterprises using technologies such as cloud computing, extensive use of artificial intelligence and data analytics, integration of interoperable internet of things (IoT) devices and the blockchained decentralization, including advanced materials. At the same time, regulatory and legal systems need to be strengthened in order for the ecosystem be protected from cyber risks and threats to allow for the market actors to flourish. In order to enjoy the benefits brought on by digital technologies, there are regulatory issues that come with technological adoption along with financial stability implications and consumer protection, with suggestions that regulators themselves adopt advanced technologies (RegTech) to embark on the new era of market supervision and monitoring to enhance cybersecurity.

The rise of frontier digital technologies for financial services, like peer-to-peer (P2P) crowdfunding, indicates new ways to access alternative financing over traditional financing. This research contributes to the nascent literature on digital finance in real estate crowdfunding, and its potential of being applied to public housing. The idea of such a platform on the blockchain is this paper’s second conceptual innovation. The rationale is to illustrate the significance of crowdfunding to alternative financing, and how blockchain technology might improve the weaknesses of crowdfunding. The real estate industry needs to embrace new solutions, capable of dealing with its traditional problems and to increase efficiency, sustainability, accountability and prevent market failures within the economy. In this new market environment, we review real estate crowdfunding acceptance in the US, Europe and Asia as well as conceptualize tech-enhanced platform that adopts the blockchain to improve the crowdfunding process for real estate public housing. This can be achieved by exploring new peer-to-peer (P2P) opportunities with better management of information and reduction in origination costs.

Financial reform in the last few decades has transformed the global operations of finance watched over by a reactive regulatory framework, in a concerted effort to enhance the resilience of institutional structure, recapture market trust and improve the critical supporting infrastructure to the economy. Many financial institutions are struggling with ever-changing regulatory requirements and the increased burden of intricate rules. Such rules can be conflicting, and subjected to local implementation and jurisdictic interpretation. Non-compliance or the inability to meet the deadlines subject institutions to hefty penalties and multimillion-dollar fines for failures in controlling nefarious and over-the-counter trading activities. In this chapter, we map out ongoing regulatory milestones globally to understand the main supervisory priorities by territory and propose how financial institutions can successfully administer regulatory change through an AI-driven regulatory management model within their organizations. We discuss the evolution, challenges and recommendations for financial institutions (including Shariah compliance) in the change management for regulations using a structured approach that addresses regional priorities.

This paper sets macro-level and micro-level operational indicators for socioeconomic development through a Maqāṣid al- Sharī‘ah framework. It also sets forth six broad recommendations and nine specific initiatives within a fourdimensional framework for institutional governance, particularly for socioeconomic development policy. A lattice of multidimensional indicators and multipronged initiatives are proposed to address the multifaceted dimensions of institutional governance and the various transmission channels that influence socio-economic policy. While empirical studies have demonstrated the importance of institutions and ethics in socio-economic development, the pressing issue remains how deep Maqāṣid al- Sharī‘ah understanding in human decision-making can be developed to influence behaviors that are efficient, inclusive, moral, and trustworthy that leads to peace, prosperity and progress. This paper attempts to address this concern

A concern that has emerged repeatedly in the support for long-term sustainable development is the insufficient availability of long-term finance for projects such as infrastructure. This paper considers some of the possible strategies to overcome obstacles (cognitive or otherwise) to ensure the provision of long-term financing. The author discusses several behavioral interventions to surmount hurdles both from the demand and supply sides as well as creating enabling environments for better access to finance. This effectively requires challenging the rationale underlying private financial flows that are driven by short-term profits and rents, and strengthening mechanisms for mobilizing and allocating both domestic and external finance for value creation and development over a longer time horizon. It also involves properly designed projects that contractually distributes risks and shares returns within economically rational financing structures and create the right incentives for the various partners.

A concern that has emerged repeatedly in the support for long-term sustainable development is the insufficient availability of long-term finance for projects such as infrastructure. This chapter considers some of the possible strategies to overcome obstacles (cognitive or otherwise) to ensure the provision of long-term financing. The author discusses several behavioral interventions to surmount hurdles both from the demand and supply sides as well as creating enabling environments for better access to finance. This effectively requires challenging the rationale underlying private financial flows that are driven by short-term profits and rents, and strengthening mechanisms for mobilizing and allocating both domestic and external finance for value creation and development over a longer time horizon. It also involves properly designed projects that contractually distributes risks and shares returns within economically rational financing structures and create the right incentives for the various partners.

Traditional economic thinking assumes the poor will want to earn their way out of poverty, but studies show that poverty makes people feel powerless and helpless and subjects them to extraordinary levels of stress and anxiety, which makes favorable decision-making difficult. The poor lack the institutional framework which, in the more prosperous and advanced economies, enhances decisions toward affluence. A multidimensional approach to achieve financial inclusion and empower the poor is discussed in this chapter. Five key areas are listed that need to be developed in order to secure a just and prosperous future for all: financial literacy and access to financial services; income and wealth redistributive instruments; development of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs); a sound legal and enforcement system; and an adequate metric set to measure effectiveness, performance, and progress of such initiatives. This chapter includes behavioral issues in financial decision-making and suggests a behavioral approach to strategy implementation.

There is a strong belief formed in scholarly and policy circles that contemporary capitalism is the source of many economic, social and political problems that plague the world today. This system is blamed for large inequalities between the rich and the poor, unrestrained profit-seeking without moral, ethical and social considerations, venal accumulation of income and wealth, and environmental destruction. The argument that capitalism drives innovation and attracts investment is now weakend substantially by these systemic global problems that pose existential threat to human societies. It is clear that the world cannot continue on the current trajectory and needs to harness other forms of managing its resources to create a balance between, self-love, profit motive, ambition on the one hand, and moral, ethical, social responsibility and environmental accountability, on the other. “Islamic economics” has been suggested as providing a basis for one such alternative system. However, it is argued here that the present paradigm of “Islamic economics” needs to change its orientation away from its current “Islamization of knowledge” methodology toward a paradigm more attuned to the Qur’an’s vision of society and its economy in order to provide a viable and sustainable set of solutions to human problems. A move in this direction requires consideration of elements of this vision that have not been been explored thus far in presentations of the discipline of “Islamic economics”. This note is an exploratory consideration of one such fundamental elements derived from the Qur’an: the idea of spiritual capital — as the organizing element of effective and efficient utilization of social, human and financial capital — as a step toward initiating a paradigm shift in investigating the Qur’an’s vision of how societies should manage their resources.

FinTech and the digital economy offer opportunities for ASEAN to rebuild trust and confidence in a financial system that had lost them. Some technologists imagine this world without intermediaries, while others just want a faster and more efficient way of transacting. Banks, FinTech companies, and regulators need to collaborate to create an ecosystem to drive greater access to financial services in the integrated ASEAN economy. The authors discuss projected trends in technology and its use in the next few crucial years. They also recommend strategies that involve various market participants and stakeholders coming together and working towards shared goals of a unified ASEAN economic community by increasing financial inclusion for the unbanked and the seamless cross-border flow of goods, services, and payments in a safe and secure manner.

The rationale behind this research is to demonstrate the tokenization effects of the blockchain on all types of assets, and how blockchain technology might improve the way we view digital exchange and use digital money. The finance industry is progressing towards innovative solutions, capable of dealing with traditional problems and of increasing efficiency, sustainability and accountability. This progression may also address market failures within the economy. In our conceptual chapter, we provide a short discussion of the decentralization of finance and where we are today. We begin with the fundamentals of money and the evolution of cryptocurrency issuance from ICOs to STOs then to stablecoins like CBDCs. We then examine the concept of tokenizing various types of assets and deliberate on a conceptualization of a tokenized capital markets trading platform. To clarify tokenization and its benefits, we provide an example on the tokenization concept for agriculture and livestock in raising capital for small farms. Finally, we conclude discussions on concerns for privacy and security which emphasizes on self-governance, self-regulation and cybersecurity measures.

There have been many empirical investigationinto property rights and rule of law in economic development, they do not demonstrate how deep religious understanding in human behavior for mutually beneficial decision-making. This paper attempts to address this concern so as to understand religious beliefs in constructive actions. This paper investigates the degree of compliance of individual behavior to the Islamic commandment of 'commanding right and forbidding wrong', through a behavioral approach, to understand the pervasiveness of Islamic morality in our modern societies, and how Muslims actually behave as opposed to what the Qur'an prescribes for them. The methodology of this researchevaluates the actions of experiment participants (divided into religious affiliations) through a Rowing Game that was intended to test for the rule of 'commanding right and forbidding wrong'. “The game is a prototype of a social contract where it illustrates how 'mutual undertakings' create a psychological tension between individual rationality, group benefit and straightforward compliance to Allah's commandment” (Mohamed et al, 2018). The complex nature of this command and prohibition results from the varied understanding of who is responsible (and adept enough) to enforce it, during which time is appropriate to do so and by what means. In this particular experiment, Muslims and non-Muslims appear to perform the same, with negative priming effects on the Muslims and positive priming effects for the non-Muslims.

At the outset, all macroprudential policies—limits on credit growth and other balance sheets restrictions, (countercyclical) capital and reserve requirements and surcharges, caps on loan-to-value ratios, levies and taxes—are part of the policy implementation in emerging, developed, and advanced markets alike, even in Islamic finance. These policies are motivated by market failures and externalities, but sometimes they can be hard to identify and unfortunately even more difficult to time. This chapter discusses how to best adapt these tools to specific country circumstances, drawing examples relevant to Asia and the GCC. The study proposes institutional reforms to address the cyclical behavior of our present economy and the necessary requirements to develop better early warning indicators to preempt crises in the current economic climate.

Fairness is one of the central institutional pillars of Islamic law, and its inherent legal framework dictates, among other things, clarity and ethical behaviors in all our endeavors. Righteous behaviors form the foundation of fairness and justice. This paper attempts to address deep religious understanding in human behavior for fairness and justice so as to use religious values in productive economic behaviors, like the sharing risk and benefits in mutual agreements.The methodology of this study assesses the behavior of the subject pool (players representative of Muslims and non-Muslims) through the Ultimatum Game that was designed to test fairness and experiment in decision-making to measure fairness in economic transactions and to observe the level of religious-specific acceptance norms. This paper provides an actual behavioral investigation into how people (Muslims and non-Muslims) behave in real life, whether it is in accordance to what their religion prescribes to them or otherwise. In terms of fairness in contracting, non-Muslims performed a little bit better than Muslims but there were significant differences between the primed and unprimed subjects in the Muslim and non-Muslim groups where it was positive for the Muslim group and negative for the non-Muslim group.