Indicators for Usury Prohibition on the Performance of the Interest-free Banking in Iran (Case Study: Granted Facilities of Branches of Tejarat Banks of Mashhad)

Given the main distinction of conventional banking from interest – free banking is to avoid usury, this paper focuses on adapting performance of banking system to prohibition of usury principle and this issue is of great importance, since the performance of banking system has faced with deficiencies and ambiguities that whether banking system is consistent with Islamic codes. Thus, introducing quantitative and specific indicators seems necessary to cope banking system activities with Shari`a criteria and principles to measure the distance or proximity of the usury prohibition from its performance. The hypothesis of this paper is that, more than half of bank transactions at branches of Tejarat Bank of Mashhad are usury. The research method is descriptive and content analysis, in which indicators for usury prohibition are estimated using survey study and filling the questionnaires by Shia ayatollahs and jurists. The statistical population consists of all contracts among branches of Tejarat Bank of Mashhad and bank customers during 2009-2010. Using cluster sampling, a sample with 451 customers, who get bank facilities, was selected. Although the principle of non-interest banking operations is fully comply with the Shari’a, but the results of the estimation of indicators for usury prohibition indicate that more than half of bank trasactions at branches of Tejarat Bank of Mashhad are usury.