Are Islamic Banks really Islamic?

The last couple of years have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of "Islamic" banks in the country. And I am pretty much sure that coming months & years will witness the arrival of new "players" on the scene too. But the question here is, are the Islamic banks really Islamic or is it just another way of emotional blackmail to facilitate the transfer of money from the pockets of normal people to the pockets of shareholders of those banks?

Some of you may ask, why am I being so pessimistic? Let me try to explain my point of view. Do you feel a difference between how an Islamic bank deals with its customers compared to conventional ones? Well, the answer in majority of the cases is in negative. Both of them charge their customers & usually there is not much difference in the amount except here they call it profit & over there they call it interest.

Here they have more paperwork to test the patience of customers so they get more "ajr" or reward from God for their patience while the conventional banks are comparitively better when it comes to customer service. The test of patience starts the moment you enter inside to open an account and continues all the way to you trying to utilize one of their financial "services". You don't believe me? Check this post by someone who had to endure that patience test.

Common sense says the customer service in Islamic banks should be better than conventional ones because their profit margins are higher but unfortunately that is not the case. Poor customer service makes them more unIslamic than Islamic. I think the only major difference is that here they have Shari'a boards comprised of religious scholar to give their bank an "authentic Islamic" feel.

Do you agree or disagree with my arguements? How has been your experience with an Islamic bank? Do share your thoughts :-)