Understanding customer choice in islamic banking: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Customer choice is decisive for the growth and legitimacy of Islamic banking, yet the evidence on its determinants is dispersed across theories, methods, and national settings. This study systematically reviews and synthesises the empirical literature to identify the determinants influencing customer choice in Islamic banking and to map the research gaps and future research directions that emerge from that evidence. Design/methodology/approach. Following PRISMA 2020 and the Population–Exposure–Outcome (PEO) framework, 156 records exported from Scopus were screened; after removing non-empirical document types and studies not focused on customers, 122 empirical articles published between 1997 and 2026 were included. Methodological quality was appraised with the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT 2018), and the evidence was integrated through narrative thematic synthesis. Determinants cluster into five families: religious–normative (religiosity, Sharia compliance, awareness, knowledge, subjective norm), service–relational (service quality, trust, reputation, customer experience, satisfaction), economic–functional (cost/price/profit, convenience, perceived value, financial literacy), technological (digital and mobile banking, perceived usefulness and ease of use, innovativeness), and social–psychological mediators (attitude, social influence, perceived risk). Religiosity (59 studies), attitude (50), and cost/price/profit (41) dominate, but their effects are inconsistent and frequently mediated by attitude and moderated by religiosity, generation, and Muslim/non-Muslim status. Originality/value. The review shows that the field is empirically crowded yet theoretically narrow, geographically concentrated in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan, and methodologically dominated by cross-sectional survey designs. It advances an integrative conceptual framework and a structured future-research agenda, thereby justifying a fresh synthesis of a rapidly expanding but fragmented literature.