Operational-Profitability-Quality Performance of Dubai’s Banks

A parallel data envelopment analysis model of operational-profitability and operational-quality indicators was applied to the banking sector in Dubai. Information was gathered about the 18 main banks which clustered into Islamic and commercial banks. Data were obtained from two sources; for the operationalprofitability segment, data were obtained from the formal financial statements of banks in Dubai, and the data for the operational-quality segment were collected randomly from 450 customers by using a well-prepared SERVQUAL questionnaire. The technical efficiencies for both models were computed; and comparisons were made between the Islamic and the commercial banks within both models. The findings are that there are no statistical differences between the Islamic and the commercial banks in the operational-profitability model. However, the Islamic banks dominate the commercial banks in the operational-quality model. Based on an in-depth analysis, the operational-quality in Islamic banks depends on the assurance, responsiveness, and reliability factors.