Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,7, University of Applied Sciences Essen, language: English, abstract: The national crisis of the American banking system developed to a multinational crisis of the financial world and finally ended in an international implosion of the world's economic system. The experts discuss how to stabilize this system in order to avoid a further collapse and critics reveal that the current crisis is the proof of failure of our traditional banking system. As a consequence of the financial crisis in 2007, a higher attendance of discussing alternative banking systems aroused the interest of this paper. The Islamic banking sector survived that crisis without having any insolvencies and governmental help as it could be observed in the western world. In contrast to the western banking system, the modalities of financial transactions are characterized among many other features by its connection to real economy and abdication of interest-bearing or speculative investments. This term paper will deal with the question wether the "Islamic Banking" could represent an alternative the predominating system in Germany. One aspect of this thesis will be if the Islamic system could replace the German one in the future. Firstly each culture will be analyzed and afterwards compared on the basis of Hofstede's cultural studies. The main part will take care of the practical application of the theoretical elements by a result evaluation and critical analysis of the above-mentioned thesis. In section four a conclusion will be drawn as well as an outlook will be given on future development potentialities in the field of "Islamic Finance".