The most important restriction imposed on Islamic banking is the prohibition of riba. Among muslims, riba is understood as profit which has not been earned, interest on lending. A second important limitation of Islamic banking is the prohibition of gharar. In the context of trade it means the unacceptability of a situation when the buyer does not know what he bought, and the seller what he sold. A third limitation is the prohibition of maysir. Generally it refers to games of chance (when the result depends on chance). Of course there is no prohibition of taking risks in order to make a profit, which constitutes normal business practice.

Due to the implementation of those prohibitions and observance of religious regulations the Islamic banking should possess the following characteristics: replacement of interest with participation in profit, emphasis on the viability of a project instead of creditworthiness, stronger ties between the financial domain and reality and the exercise of moral principles also in banking practice. As a consequence, attempt is made to employ instruments, which do not make use of interest rate, such as: murabahah, mudarabah, musharakah and ijarah, to mention just the most important.

At present the amount of banks declaring full conformance to the principles of Islamic banking is estimated at around 70 (discounting Iran and Sudan, where generally all banks operate according to non-interest rate principles).

The author tries to answer the following questions: whether Islamic banks really operate in a way, which eliminates the injustice related to charging interest; what is the influence of competition by traditional banks on banks operating along Islamic principles and what is the impact of Islamic banking on banks operating along traditional principles.