Structural changes,competition and bank stability in Malaysia’s dual banking system

This paper assesses Malaysia’s competition landscape and its risk implications subsequent to conventional banking consolidation and Islamic banking penetration in the aftermath of the 1997/1998 Asian financial crisis. Employing a panel sample of conventional and Islamic commercial banks, it arrives at the following conclusions. First, the consolidation exercise, which has led to a significant reduction in the number of domestic commercial banks, has not stifled banking competition. Second, the paper provides empirical support for the competition-stability relationship, particularly for the conventional banking sector. Islamic banking sector risk appears to be neutral to market competition or market power, although there is limited evidence that it increases with overall market concentration. Finally, the analysis uncovers the risk-increasing effect of the Islamic banking market structure on the conventional banking sector. By contrast, conventional banking market concentration tends to reduce the credit risk of Islamic banks.     

Financial stability of Islamic banking and the global financial crisis: Evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council

Using a sample of 76 banks from the Gulf Cooperation Council region, we use accounting- as well as market-based measures of financial stability to examine whether Islamic banks outperformed conventional banks in the time of financial shocks during the period 2000–2013. We find that the difference between the two banking types was initially not significant during the GFC. However, when the financial shock spread to the real economy during the later phases of the crisis, Islamic banks suffered a significantly higher level of financial instability than conventional banks. This result holds true for large banks but not for small Islamic banks. Small Islamic banks demonstrated a relatively better handling of the economic downturn than large Islamic banks, supporting the argument that Islamic banks are more stable when they operate at a small scale but lose this stability when they increase their scale of operations. Hence, while Islamic banks may have escaped the consequences of highly volatile financial instruments, they were not spared from a major shock in the real economic sectors.     

Inefficiency and heterogeneity in Turkish banking: 1990–2000

Recent studies have stressed the importance of privatization and openness to foreign competition for bank efficiency and economic growth. We study bank efficiency in Turkey, an emerging economy with great heterogeneity in bank types and ownership structures. Earlier studies of Turkish banking had three limitations: (i) excessive reliance on cost‐function frontier analyses, wherein volume of loans is a measure of banking output; (ii) pooling all banks or imposing ad hoc heterogeneity assumptions; and (iii) lack of a comprehensive panel data set for proper analysis of productivity and heterogeneity. We use an estimation–classification procedure to find likelihood‐driven classification of bank technologies in an 11‐year panel. In addition, we augment traditional cost‐frontier analysis with a labour‐efficiency analysis. We conclude that state banks are not particularly inefficient overall, but that they do utilize labour inefficiently. This partially supports recent calls for privatization. We also conclude that special finance houses (or Islamic banks) utilize the same technology as conventional domestic banks, and do so relatively efficiently. This suggests that they do not cause harm to the financial system. Finally, we conclude that foreign banks utilize a different technology from domestic ones. This suggests that one should not overstate their value to the financial sector. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What makes Islamic banks different? A multivariate approach

Using data from 8615 banks (including 123 Islamic banks) in 124 developed and developing countries for the period between 2006 and 2012, we examine the financial characteristics that distinguish between conventional and Islamic banks. As banks’ financial characteristics are multi-faceted concepts, our indicators are constructed using principal component analysis. We find that Islamic banks are more capitalized, more liquid and more profitable, but have more volatile earnings compared to US and European banks. However, similarities in terms of liquidity and earnings volatility are more noticeable when the sample is limited to banks operating in countries where both systems coexist. Finally, we find that higher capital makes the returns of Islamic banks more volatile, while higher liquidity decreases the profitability of conventional banks.     

RISE OF THE FIDUCIARY STATE: A SURVEY OF SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND RESEARCH

We survey the literature documenting the rise of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), which, with assets under management of over $5.4 trillion at year‐end 2014, are a major force in global finance. Research papers have analyzed the evolution of SWFs from stabilization funds to stand‐alone wealth management funds; we both survey this research and show that more than 25 countries have launched or proposed new SWFs since January 2008. The most salient and controversial feature of SWFs is that they are state‐owned; we survey the existing literature on state ownership and discuss what this predicts about the efficiency and beneficence of government control of SWF assets. We discuss the documented importance of SWF funding sources (oil sales revenues versus excess reserves from export earnings) and survey the normative literature describing how SWFs should allocate funds. We then summarize the empirical literature studying how SWFs actually do allocate funds—across asset classes, geographically, and across industries. We document that most SWF equity investments in publicly traded firms involve cross‐border purchases of sizeable minority stakes (median around 20%) in target firms, with a strong preference for investments in the financial sector. Next, we assess empirical studies examining the impact of SWF stock investments on target firm financial and operating performance, and find universal support for a positive announcement period stock price increase of 1–3%. This, however, is significantly lower than the 5% abnormal return documented for stock purchases by comparable privately owned financial investors in recent studies, indicating a “sovereign wealth fund discount.” We conclude by summarizing the lessons of SWF research and pointing out unresolved issues.     

Favoring the small and the plenty: Islamic banking for MSMEs

While MSMEs form the backbone of many countries, most of them suffer from limited access to finance. We extend the literature by examining whether Islamic banks, compared to their conventional peers, favor more the MSMEs credit market segment in Turkey. We do this by considering various aspects of the lending behavior towards MSMEs (total lending, foreign currency lending, loan commitments, loan quality, and revenues) across different MSMEs size categories (micro, small and medium-sized firms). Our results show that once we control for bank-specific characteristics, we find that Islamic banks are more engaged with MSME financing and generate more revenues from servicing MSMEs. Concerning the quality of the MSME lending portfolio, no distinguishable patterns were observed between Islamic and conventional banks.     

Cost and profit efficiency of conventional and Islamic banks in GCC countries

Using stochastic frontier approach, this paper investigates the cost and profit efficiency levels of 71 commercial banks in Gulf cooperation council countries over the period 1999–2007. This study also conducts a comparative analysis of the efficiency across countries and between conventional and Islamic banks. Moreover, we examine the bank-specific variables that may explain the sources of inefficiency. The empirical results indicate that banks in the Gulf region are relatively more efficient at generating profits than at controlling costs. We also find that in terms of both cost and profit efficiency levels, the conventional banks on average are more efficient than Islamic banks. Furthermore, we observe a positive correlation of cost and profit efficiency with bank capitalization and profitability, and a negative one with operation cost. Higher loan activity increases the profit efficiency of banks, but it has a negative impact on cost efficiency.     

Institutions and Bank Performance: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis*

This article investigates the impact of institutions on bank efficiency and technology, using a stochastic frontier analysis of a data set of 7,959 banks across 136 countries over 10 years. The results confirm the importance of well‐developed institutions for the efficient operation of commercial banks. Furthermore, the insights reveal the impact of institutional reforms in improving bank efficiency. The results are robust to adjustments in country‐specific effects, achieved by including country dummies, as well as across different risk profiles. Moreover, they provide empirical evidence in support of the public view of the banking sector.     

The operating efficiency of financial holding and nonfinancial holding banks—Epsilou‐based measure metafrontier data envelopment analysis model

Previous bank efficiency studies assumed that the same efficient frontier system exists in different types of banks, but the conventional radial data envelopment analysis (DEA) model slacks are not counted in efficiency scores, and nonradial DEA models do not consider radial features. This paper develops an Epsilou‐based measure meta‐DEA approach for measuring the efficiencies and technology gaps of different bank types. The results are as the follows: The average efficiency and technology gaps of nonfinancial holding banks are better than those of financial holding banks. The nonfinancial holding banks are more efficient than financial holding banks in investment and other income.     

A SURVEY OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE LITERATURE OF FINANCE AND GROWTH

Abstract.  This paper provides a survey of the recent progress in the literature of financial development and economic growth. The survey highlights that most empirical studies focus on either testing the role of financial development in stimulating economic growth or examining the direction of causality between these two variables. Although the positive role of finance on growth has become a stylized fact, there are some methodological reservations about the results from these empirical studies. Several key issues unresolved in the literature are highlighted. The paper also points to several directions for future research.     

Does financial regulation affect the profit efficiency and risk of banks? Evidence from China's commercial banks

The goal of financial regulation is to enable banks to improve liquidity and solvency. Stricter regulation may be good for bank stability, but not for bank efficiency. This research aims to examine whether banks have met the CBRC's standard of financial regulations and explores how the previously implemented financial regulations have affected bank efficiency and risk in the past. In addition, we also explored the trade-off relationship between efficiency and risk. Unlike other studies, this study used bank assets as a classification standard from the financial risk and differential regulatory perspective.The empirical results indicate that the CBRC regulates the provision coverage ratio and cost-to-income ratio, which seems relevant to large banks and the loan-to-deposit ratio, capital adequacy ratio, and leverage ratio, which seems relevant to small banks. The CBRC regulates the current ratio to reduce the risks of banks. Based on our empirical results, the current ratio did not affect the risks and led to different efficiency results between large and small banks. In an environment with asymmetric information, a bank decision-making is unobservable. The characteristics of financial regulation provide market clues if a bank is operating at the most efficiency and risk condition.     

供应链金融模式下中小企业信用风险的评价研究

过去银行对中小企业信用风险的研究主要是把单个企业作为主体,仅仅只关注中小企业的财务状况。而在供应链金融模式中,对中小企业风险的评价则换了一个新的角度。文章主要针对在供应链金融模式下对中小企业信用风险的测度进行系统性研究,提出用主成分分析法和Logistic回归方法建立信用风险评价体系的模型。     

Risk pricing of wholesale funds and the behavior of retail deposit rates

We explore the relationship between bank risk and retail deposits. Predicted risk premiums on wholesale funds explain retail rate heterogeneity through two channels. First, increased bank risk premiums encourage the bank to substitute from wholesale funds to small certificates of deposits (CD) by increasing small CD rates. Second, increased rival risk premiums in a local market require the bank to increase small CD rates even more. Our results are consistent with risk encouraging the use of small CDs as a marginal source of funds and promoting local market competition for small CDs. As risk premiums rise, banks also reduce rates on other retail deposits. Our approach has implications for regulatory and monetary policies and financial stability.     

Does bond market development enhance the banking sector’s efficiency in resource allocation? Industry-level evidence from Korea

Korea’s financial system used to be bank-based, with banks playing the leading role in financing corporations. As highlighted by Park et al. (2019), however, bond markets have developed rapidly in Korea and other Asian countries. The corporate bond market competes with banks as a source of finance for large borrowers. As such, bond markets may affect banking sector operation, a process known as disintermediation. In this paper, we examine whether bond market development improves the efficiency of resource allocation in Korean bank lending. We propose two channels through which bond market development affects the efficiency of bank lending. Since the two channels have opposing effects on the efficiency of banking, the issue must be settled by empirical analysis. We find that bank loans are much less efficient than bond financing in allocating resources across industries. Furthermore, banks are particularly inefficient in resource allocation in industries that rely more on bond financing. This suggests that competition from bond financing does not improve allocative efficiency of bank loans.     

The role of mutual funds in the sustainable energy sector

The integration of renewable energy criteria in mutual fund investment decisions could channel private resources into the funding of environmentally related projects implemented by firms contributing to sustainable development. This paper examines the performance of European renewable energy funds that invest globally by comparing their risk‐adjusted returns with those achieved by black energy and conventional mutual funds. It uses Carhart's model on a sample of 81 renewable energy funds, 125 black energy funds, and 4,337 conventional mutual funds. The results indicate that 32.1% of renewable mutual funds—most of which adopt energy producers, renewable energy technology, and energy efficiency‐focused criteria—perform significantly better than the S&P Clean Energy market benchmark, this percentage being affected by the different states of the economy. However, none of them are able to beat the fossil fuel energy (S&P Global 1200 Energy Index) or conventional market benchmarks (S&P Global 1200 Index). Furthermore, 37.04% of renewable energy funds significantly underperform the S&P Global 1200 benchmark. Therefore, the investment in renewable energy funds has a financial cost for investors in relation to conventional fund investors.     

Are universal banks bad for financial stability? Germany during the world financial crisis

This case study explores the contribution of universal banking to financial stability in Germany during the recent financial crisis. Germany is a prototype for universal banking and has suffered from a rather small number of banking crises in the past. We review the banking literature and analyze the major institutional and regulatory features of the German financial system to establish a nexus between universal banking and stability. We focus on the following questions. First, which banks failed and did they because they were universal or because of other reasons? Second, which types of distress beside outright bank failures resulted from the crisis and how did German universal banks dealt with them? We show that only few German banks failed and these banks did so not because they were universal banks but because they were publicly owned. Most banks instead contributed to reduce the impact of the recent crisis.     

小微企业线上融资风险与防范研究

对小微企业开展线上融资是金融机构贯彻落实国家发展普惠金融战略、扶持小微企业发展的重要措施。但在开展这项业务时,银行存在风险高、实际资金用途难以掌控、追债困难等风险。论文在分析小微企业线上融资风险产生的原因的基础上,提出金融机构可以采取构建小微企业数据平台和融资综合服务平台、建立负面清单、强化属地管理、积极探索风险分担补偿机制、加强金融机构人才队伍建设、尝试服务外包等措施进行有效防范。     

Financial sector strategies and financial sector outcomes: Do the strategies perform?

Financial sector strategies enable financial policymakers and stakeholders to take a holistic view at the financial development needs in their country and to formulate balanced financial policies. They help policymakers consider the systemic risk that different development policies involve and choose an informed way forward. We construct a new dataset of historical financial sector strategies covering 150 countries over the period 1985–2014, and assess the strategies using the rating criteria proposed by Maimbo and Melecky (2014). We then investigate how the quality of the strategies can affect financial sector outcomes such as financial depth, inclusion, efficiency and stability. We find that the use of financial sector strategies helped increase financial sector deepening, inclusion and stability, and that this impact could be greater for higher quality strategies. One way how financial sector strategies can improve financial sector outcomes is by improving the regulatory framework for finance. A significant relationship between the use of strategies and the efficiency of banks is not confirmed.     

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MONETARY AND MACROPRUDENTIAL POLICIES: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

The emergence of macroprudential policies, implemented by central banks as a means of promoting financial stability, has raised many questions regarding the interaction between monetary and macroprudential policies. Given the limited number of studies available, this paper sheds light on this issue by providing a critical and systematic review of the literature. To this end, we divide the theoretical and empirical studies into two broad channels of borrowers – consisting of the cost of funds and the collateral constraint – and financial intermediaries – consisting of risk‐taking and payment systems. In spite of the existing ambiguity surrounding coordination issues between monetary and macroprudential policies, it is argued that monetary policy alone is not sufficient to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability. Hence, macroprudential policies are needed to supplement monetary. In addition, we find that the role of the exchange rate is critical in the implementation of monetary and macroprudential policies in emerging markets, while volatile capital flows pose another challenge. In so far as how the arrangement of monetary and macroprudential policies varies across countries, key theoretical and policy implications have been identified.