Bank Income Diversification,Asset Correlation and Systemic Risk

This paper explores whether the asset correlations among the non-interest activities of banks are the key causes for enhancing the bank diversification-systemic risk nexus. Our empirical evidence indicates that banks' income diversification significantly raises systemic risk. After removing those banks with high asset correlations, the effect of individual banks' diversification on banking systemic risk turns insignificant or even inverse. The results show that high asset correlations among banks could introduce bank failures, thereby leading to higher systemic risk in the financial sector.     

Impact of international expansion strategy on the performance of Japanese banks

The effect of cross-border diversification on bank performance is part of the broader debate on how multinational banking and financial integration affect the global financial economy. Previous studies that examined this relationship present mixed results - namely that cross-border diversification improves bank performance but also increases bank risks that could lead to systemic failure. Even so, this line of debate has not been examined in the case of Japanese banks conducting international operations. The present study questions whether cross-border diversification improves the performance of Japanese banks and to what extent each cross-border expansion activity affects bank performance. The latter was largely ignored in previous studies. Our results show that cross-border diversification improves cost efficiency but decreases/harms the profit efficiency of the banks analyzed. In addition, we find that the expansion of foreign assets and foreign branch operations present funding risks and operational inefficiency. We offer two important recommendations. First, as a major player in international lending, the current expansion activities of Japanese banks require close monitoring and supervision to prevent systemic risk resulting from aggressive and risky overseas expansion activities. Second, the current expansion strategies of Japanese banks, especially the expansion of overseas assets and branch operations (retail banking), should be re-examined.     

The relationship between revenue diversification and bank performance: Do financial structures and financial reforms matter?

This paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating the impact of revenue diversification on bank performance through a broad array of financial reforms, including credit controls, interest rate controls, entry barriers, banking supervision, privatization, and financial account restrictions. This analysis is the first to investigate whether financial structures (bank- or market-based systems) change the effect of diversification on individual bank performance. We use a panel dataset sample from 29 Asia-Pacific countries covering the period between 1995 and 2009, for a total of 2372 banks. Unlike the results of previous studies based on data from the U.S. and Europe, this study confirms the hypothesis of the portfolio diversification effect for the Asia-Pacific banking industry. For bank-based groups, bank performance can be improved through diversification, supporting the “bank-based view” hypothesis. Finally, under different financial systems, the relationships among revenue diversity, financial reforms, and bank performances are multidimensional.     

Competitive Conditions in the Tanzanian Commercial Banking Industry

Abstract: Since 1991, Tanzania has made important improvements in reforming its financial sector, dismantling the state‐dominated banking sector and allowing foreign bank entry. Despite this, the banking industry is still concentrated with low accessibility to financial services. Large foreign banks dominate the financial landscape, preventing competitive dynamism to permeate the sector. This paper analyses the competitive nature of the Tanzanian banking industry from 2004 to 2008. Utilizing a rich bank level data set, we employ the Panzar–Rosse methodology to compute the competitive index, taking into account risk, efficiency, regulatory and macroeconomic factors. The results show that banks in Tanzania earned their income under conditions of oligopolistic conduct. Moreover, the competitive index derived from an interest revenue equation was not significantly different from that obtained using an aggregate revenue measure. This suggests that the degree of contestability from traditional intermediation activities approximates overall bank behaviour. The overall message is that greater market contestability can be achieved by adopting measures aimed at stimulating competitiveness in the banking sector, including consolidating gains on the macroeconomic front and allowing more foreign bank entry so as to increase the spread of banking services.     

Shadow banking,macroprudential policy,and bank stability: Evidence from China’s wealth management product market

This study examines whether shadow banking activities reduce the stability of 269 commercial banks in China, and if they do, whether a tightening macroprudential policy could mitigate this negative effect. A quarterly bank level, unbalanced panel data of wealth management products (WMPs) from 2006 to 2018 measured China’s shadow banking activities. The results show that China’s shadow banking activities weaken the stability of banks, especially for principal-floating WMPs, long-term WMPs, and WMPs issued to individual investors. China’s macroprudential supervision improves the soundness of banks and eases the negative effects of shadow banking on banking stability. Our results suggest the necessity to design specific macroprudential policies based on different kinds of shadow banking activities and different types of banks.     

COMPETITIVE ISSUES IN THE TAIWANESE BANKING INDUSTRY: MERGERS AND UNIVERSAL BANKS

This paper investigates scale economies and scope economies in the Taiwanese banking system, looking beyond the market‐power (MP) and efficient‐structure (ES) hypotheses. Given the existence of overall economies of scale and the positive value of expansion path sub‐additivity, we conclude that there might be large increases in profits following mergers. Moreover, since the profit‐structure relationship after financial reform is determined by the relative‐market‐power hypothesis, this consolidation trend will not necessarily decrease the social benefit for Taiwanese consumers. With regard to scope economies and product‐specific economies of scale, we are unable to recommend whether Taiwanese banks should develop as specialized banks or diversified banks in the future. Finally, we find that risk indicators play an important role in explaining the observed variation in bank profitability, and present evidence that default risk and leverage risk have negative effects on the profits of banking, although the effect of portfolio risk is uncertain.     

资本账户开放对商业银行风险的影响研究——来自新兴经济体的经验证据

资本账户开放对一国宏观经济至关重要。文章总结了资本账户开放影响商业银行风险的财富与估值效应、周期效应、道德风险效应和竞争效应,利用2011-2017年期间22个新兴经济体111家商业银行的微观数据,构建动态面板广义矩估计（GMM）模型实证检验了资本账户开放对商业银行风险的影响,并且进行了异质性检验。实证结果显示：（1）资本账户开放与商业银行风险呈正U型关系。（2）资本越雄厚、规模越大的商业银行抵抗资本账户开放影响的能力越强。为避免银行体系风险的过度积累,政府应考虑银行业资本充足情况与宏观经济情况,不断探索宏观审慎工具,合理安排资本账户开放程度。     

中东欧国家银行业多元化经营对传统业务影响分析

本文利用中东欧10国193家银行1997～2010年的面板数据,检验银行业多元化经营对银行传统业务收入的影响。实证结果显示,银行多元化经营会降低银行的传统业务收入。从细分的多元化经营项目看,佣金收入、证券买卖收入以及其他收入也均会显著降低银行的传统业务收入。此外,多元化经营会使银行低估贷款风险,从而增加银行风险。实证结果还表明,银行多元化经营集中度指标与银行利息项收入呈显著正相关关系,这说明银行如果过度追求多元化经营会降低银行利息项收入。     

Financial Liberalization and Foreign Bank Entry on the Domestic Banking Performance in MENA Countries

Abstract: This study examines the impact of financial liberalization and foreign bank entry on the domestic banking sector from 1996 to 2007, and builds upon and expands the work of Lee (2002). We find that foreign bank entry, financial liberalization, ownership structure and degree of openness of foreign bank entry positively impact domestic banking system operating efficiency, capitalization, risk management, long‐term soundness, financial performance as well as economic and financial development. However, foreign bank entry is associated with reduced profit margins and increased operating costs of domestic banks in countries with less developed capital markets. Empirical evidence seems to support the argument that foreign bank presence leads to better allocation of capital and eliminates connected lending practices.     

Bank consolidation and competitiveness: Empirical evidence from the Korean banking industry

The Korean government consolidated several banks following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998 to stabilize the financial market and to improve international competitiveness. This process has brought sound capital reserves, assets and profitability to the banking industry. However, due to the resulting increase in market concentration, this process has also produced concerns about the monopolistic and oligopolistic power of the banks. Recently, the growing concern within the government is the weakening of bank competition due to the sharp increase in market concentration. This study reviews and examines the status of bank consolidation and the competitive structure of the banking industry. The degree of competitiveness in the banking industry is analyzed using the Panzar and Rosse model with a non-structural approach and data from 1992 to 2007 (before the beginning of the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis). This time span is divided into a pre- and a post-bank consolidation period. The estimation results indicate that monopolistic competition in the market exists but that the competitiveness of the banks has improved with the increased market concentration. This finding contradicts previous beliefs regarding the increased risk and lower competition derived from a concentrated financial system.     

How does Bank Capital Affect Bank Profitability and Risk? Evidence from China's WTO Accession

This paper examines how bank capital affects bank profitability and risk in China, and how its impact differed before and after the nation entered the WTO. Our study uses the dynamic generalized method of moments approach with a panel database containing 171 Chinese commercial banks. We find that bank capital has significant influence on bank profitability and risk, but its impact has declined since China joined the WTO in 2001. For different sized groups, the impact of capital on profitability exhibits a distinct trend. The effects of capital on bank risk are different for large and small banks depending on the risk variables used for the Chinese banking industry.     

银行分项监管对银行风险的影响——基于发展中国家数据的实证分析

基于43 个发展中国家357 家银行数据,运用系统GMM 方法,研究银行分项监管对银行风险的影响。其中,银行监管包括12 类分项监管,银行风险包括总体风险、信用评级风险和破产风险。回归结果显示：资本监管、内部管理监管、存款保险监管、信息披露监管和监管效率5 类分项监管均能降低3 类银行风险。其他分项监管能降低1 到2 类银行风险,即准入监管能够降低总体风险,增加信用评级风险;所有权监管会增加信用评级风险,降低破产风险;外部审计监管增加银行总体风险和破产风险,降低信用评级风险;流动性监管降低银行破产风险,对总体风险、信用评级风险不显著;资产分类和处置监管降低总体风险、信用评级风险,但增加破产风险;退出监管增加银行总体风险、信用评级风险,降低银行破产风险。本文的研究对我国加强银行监管,降低银行风险有很强的现实参考意义。     

What Drives Cost Efficiency of Banks in China?

This study uses stochastic frontier analysis to examine the factors that influenced cost efficiency of banks in China from 2005 to 2013. The results indicate that policy variables, such as the reserve requirement ratio, the interest rate spread and open market operations by the People's Bank of China, are effective in improving the cost efficiency of banks, but shadow banking variables may reduce cost efficiency. Among the various bank types, city commercial banks appear to be the most efficient and foreign banks are the least efficient. The present study suggests that policy‐makers can have a positive influence on bank cost efficiency by adjusting macro policy variables on different types of banks and by requiring more information on the shadow banking activities to improve monitoring.     

Monetary Policy and the Diversification–Profitability Linkage in Banking: Evidences from Emerging Market Economies

In previous studies, the stance of monetary policy is proven to associate with banking profitability or activities. This paper provides empirical evidence aiming at the influence of monetary policy, including stances of expansionary and contractionary monetary policies, on the relationship between banks' income diversification and their profitabilities in emerging market economies. We find the significant evidence that expansionary monetary policies can raise banks' diversification efforts, whereas contractionary monetary policies weaken the efforts of banking diversification, for which our most robustness tests support these findings. There are some relevant implications and suggestions for bank managers and policymakers.     

Comparison of Bank Profitability in China and the USA

This paper examines and compares the profitability of banks in the USA and China. The USA has the largest market‐based banking system and the financial system of China is still bank‐based. Our analysis indicates that in terms of profitability, banks in China outperformed those in the USA during our study period (2008–2014). Real estate loans had an adverse effect on US bank profitability during the financial crisis and no effect after the crisis but consistently improved the profitability of Chinese banks. Interest margins have no effect on US bank profitability but a consistently positive effect on Chinese banks, confirming that China is a traditional bank‐based economy. Interbank loans have a positive and significant effect on Chinese bank profitability, while interbank domestic loans have a negative effect on US bank profitability. Finally, size had a positive effect on US banks after the financial crisis period, confirming the scale economies of large US banks, but a negative effect on Chinese banks, indicating diseconomies of scale.     

Déjà Vu: The Effect of Executives and Directors with Prior Banking Crisis Experience on Bank Outcomes around the Global Financial Crisis

We investigate the effect of executives and directors with prior banking crisis experience on bank outcomes around the global financial crisis (GFC). Executives and directors with previous experience leading banks through a bank crisis may have been uniquely able to understand the risks, recognize the warnings signs early, and thus respond more effectively to the GFC. Controlling for other executive, director, and bank‐level characteristics, we examine whether bank performance, risk taking, and accounting quality in the period immediately before and during the GFC are affected by having executives or directors who previously served as bank executives or directors during the 1980s/1990s banking crisis (80s/90s crisis). Overall, we find that banks led by these crisis‐experienced executives and directors exhibit stronger performance, lower risk taking, and higher accounting quality in the period around the GFC. These effects are strongest among bank leaders for whom the 80s/90s crisis was most salient. Results are robust to propensity‐matched samples and other analyses performed to rule out alternative explanations. Our results suggest these individuals were able to learn from prior crisis experience.     

Limits to International Banking Consolidation

Heterogenous banking supervision and regulation is often considered as the most important impediment for Pan-European Bank mergers. In this paper we identify other more fundamental reasons for a limited degree of cross-country integration in retail banking. We argue that the distribution of regional liquidity shocks may pose a natural limit to the extent of cross-border bank mergers. The paper derives the impact of different underlying stochastic structures on the optimal structure of cross regional bank mergers. Imposing a symmetry restriction on the underlying stochastic structure of liquidity shocks we find that benefits from diversification and the costs of contagion may be optimally traded off if banks from some but not from all regions merge. Under an additional monotonicity assumption full integration is only desirable if the number of regions with diverse risks is sufficiently large. We would like to thank the anonymous referee, Marc Flannery, Frank Heid, Michael Koetter, Rowena Pecchenino and the editor, George Tavlas, as well as the conference participants of the 4th INFINITY Conference Dublin for helpful comments. The views expressed here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Deutsche Bundesbank.     

Bank market power and revenue diversification: Evidence from selected ASEAN countries

This paper examines the association between bank market power and revenue diversification using a sample of 153 commercial banks from five Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam). We find a non-linear relationship between bank market power and revenue diversification, where at lower degrees of market power (in loan and deposit markets) banks concentrate on revenue diversification. In contrast, those with greater market power focus more on traditional interest-based products. Our findings also indicate that credit losses experienced earlier, during and after the Asian financial crisis have encouraged ASEAN banks to diversify into non-traditional activities to compensate for their excessive losses. When the markets recovered and loan demand increased, however, traditional interest-based business has become more important. These results remain consistent across all models providing robust results.     

新巴塞尔协议与银行审计风险

新巴塞尔协议强化了银行风险管理理念，对银行业建立完善的内部风险制度提出了更高的要求。为适应新巴塞尔协议全面实行后带来的冲击与挑战，银行审计的理论和方法也需要改进。本文主要探讨了新巴塞尔协议对我国银行业的影响，以及银行审计的改进措施。     

How does capital buffer affect bank risk-taking? New evidence from China using quantile regression

We present evidence of nonlinearity and heterogeneity relation between capital buffer and risk-taking for the Chinese banking system. We use quantile regression methods on a data set of 135 Chinese banks during 2004–2017. Our results suggest that bank capital buffer has a robust U-shaped association with bank risk-taking. This effect is more significant for banks that at the upper tail of risk-taking distribution. Moreover, we demonstrate for the first time that the turning point of capital buffer decreases throughout the risk-taking distribution. These findings offer important policy implications that continuously increasing bank capital requirement does not continuously lead to lower risk-taking, instead, requiring banks to build up too much capital buffer is more likely to result in greater risk-taking for high-risk banks.