The ‘competition–stability/fragility’ nexus: A comparative analysis of Islamic and conventional banks

The ‘competition–stability/fragility’ nexus is one of the more debated issues in the banking literature. However, while there is ample evidence concerning the relationship between competition and stability/fragility in different countries and regions, no prior study investigates this in the context of Islamic and conventional banks. We do this using data on both types of banks drawn from 16 developing economies over the period 2000–12. We measure the lack of competition using the Lerner index, and stability using both accounting-based measures, comprising the Z-score and the nonperforming loan ratio, and market-based measures, including Merton's distance to default. We employ panel vector autoregression and two-stage quantile regression to estimate the relationship. Our results lend support to the competition–fragility hypothesis in both Islamic and conventional banks. We also find the magnitude of the market power effect on stability is greater for conventional banks than Islamic banks. Lastly, banks in the median quantile of stability have a greater ability to reduce credit risk through gaining market power than banks in the lower and upper quantiles.     

Risk-adjusted profitability and stability of Islamic and conventional banks: Does revenue diversification matter?

Revenue diversification in banking offers opportunities and threats. Recent academic research shows that disadvantages may outweigh advantages, in terms of both volatility of profitability and bank riskiness. Literature on this topic in emerging countries and in the field of Islamic finance is limited: our aim is to empirically test if revenue diversity affects Islamic banks differently than conventional institutions. We analyze the impact of income diversification on profitability and firm-risk of banks in selected OIC countries, in the period 2007–2016, using a comprehensive dataset of 47 Islamic and 154 conventional banks, through diverse measures and econometric approaches. We find that diversification provides lower rewards for Islamic banks than conventional banks, with effects that are stronger for accounting-based measures rather than market-based metrics. Shares of non-interest income positively contribute to profitability regardless of the business model, whereas income diversification shows a not significant effect on the risk-adjusted profitability of Islamic banks. Moreover, we do not find any relationship between income diversification and stability for both conventional and Islamic banks.     

Efficiency in Islamic vs. conventional banking: The role of capital and liquidity

We show that higher capital and liquidity ratios increase the efficiency of conventional and Islamic banks. Using conditional quantile regressions, we further show that the effect is stronger for highly efficient, small, highly liquid, and highly capitalized conventional banks. We also find that more capitalized and liquid banks were efficient during the 2008/2009 financial crisis and the Arab Spring. Our findings support the view that the constraints imposed by Shari'a law may widen the efficiency gap between the two bank types, at the expense of Islamic banks. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the efficiency of conventional banks not only depends on bank capital and liquidity, but also on the level of bank efficiency while the relationship is inconclusive for Islamic banks. These findings provide insight into how capital and liquidity can shape bank efficiency. They suggest that higher capital and liquidity buffers serve a constraint on policymakers and may function very differently depending on the level of bank efficiency.     

Heterogeneous market structure and systemic risk: Evidence from dual banking systems

This paper investigates how banking system stability is affected when we combine Islamic and conventional finance under the same roof. We compare systemic resilience of three types of banks in six GCC member countries with dual banking systems: fully-fledged Islamic banks (IB), purely conventional banks (CB) and conventional banks with Islamic windows (CBw). We employ market-based systemic risk measures such as MES, SRISK and CoVaR to identify which sector is more vulnerable to a systemic event. We also compute weighted average GES to determine which sector is most synchronised with the market. Moreover, we use graphical network models to determine the most interconnected banking sector that can more easily spread a systemic shock to the whole system. Using a sample of observations on 79 publicly traded banks operating over the 2005–2014 period, we find that CBw is the least resilient sector to a systemic event, it has the highest synchronicity with the market, and it is the most interconnected banking sector during crisis times.     

Islamic versus conventional banks in the GCC countries: A comparative study using classification techniques

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on Islamic finance by investigating the feature of Islamic and conventional banks in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the period 2003–2010. We use parametric and non-parametric classification models (Linear discriminant analysis, Logistic regression, Tree of classification and Neural network) to examine whether financial ratios can be used to distinguish between Islamic and conventional banks. Univariate results show that Islamic banks are, on average, more profitable, more liquid, better capitalized, and have lower credit risk than conventional banks. We also find that Islamic banks are, on average, less involved in off-balance sheet activities and have more operating leverage than their conventional peers. Results from classification models show that the two types of banks may be differentiated in terms of credit and insolvency risk, operating leverage and off-balance sheet activities, but not in terms of profitability and liquidity. More interestingly, we find that the recent global financial crisis has a negative impact on the profitability for both Islamic and conventional banks, but time shifted. Finally, results show that Logit regression obtained slightly higher classification accuracies than other models.     

Time series analysis of financial stability of banks: Evidence from Saudi Arabia

Islamic banks are characterized by their compliance to Islamic laws and practices, primarily the prohibition of interest and the trading of loans. During the 2008–2009 financial crisis, when a large number of conventional banks announced bankruptcy, no Islamic bank failures were reported. However, there is no clear consensus in the literature on the question of whether Islamic banks are more or less stable than conventional banks. To shed some light on this issue, we studied a sample of Saudi banks using quarterly data over a period centered on the 2008 financial crisis. Careful analysis of the data suggested first of all that many of the variables typically used in financial stability studies may be non-stationary, a methodological point largely ignored in the literature. Using time series methods suitable for this type of data, we concluded that individual heterogeneity may matter more than either the conventional or Islamic nature of the banks. Concentrating on the largest banks, we find the Islamic banks contribute positively to the stability of the system.     

A Survival Analysis of Islamic and Conventional Banks

Are Islamic banks inherently more stable than conventional banks? We address this question by applying a survival analysis based on the Cox proportional hazard model to a comprehensive sample of 421 banks in 20 Middle and Far Eastern countries from 1995 to 2010. By comparing the failure risk for both bank types, we find that Islamic banks have a significantly lower risk of failure than that of their conventional peers. This lower risk is based both unconditionally and conditionally on bank-specific (microeconomic) variables as well as macroeconomic and market structure variables. Our findings indicate that the design and implementation of early warning systems for bank failure should recognize the distinct risk profiles of the two bank types.     

The regulations–risk taking nexus under competitive pressure: What about the Islamic banking system?

Does market power condition the effect of bank regulations and supervision on bank risk taking? We focus on three regulatory tools: capital requirements, the restriction of activities, and official supervisory powers. Employing 10 years of unbalanced panel data on 123 Islamic and conventional banks operating in the Middle East and Asia, we arrive at the following conclusions. First, banking market power strengthens the negative impact of capital regulation on bank risk taking. Second, our empirical results suggest that the negative effect of activity restrictions on stability is diminished when banks have greater market power. Finally, we do not find strong evidence that the negative effect of supervisory power on banks’ risk taking is conditioned by their competitive behavior. In further analysis, we differentiate between Islamic and conventional banks regarding their competition, as well as their risk behavior. The results differ according to the banking business model. These findings could be useful for bank regulators in light of the accomplishment of Islamic banks’ regulatory framework. Indeed, the adoption of Basel III represents a significant regulatory challenge, given that it does not take into account the specificities of Islamic banks.     

Payout policy and ownership structure: The case of Islamic and conventional banks

Using a sample of Islamic and conventional financial institutions domiciled in 16 countries for the period 2000–2015, we examine how ownership structure affects dividend policy. Our main findings indicate that ownership identity is important in explaining dividend policy in these banks, albeit in different patterns. In particular, the results suggest that government ownership seems to exert negative effects on dividend payouts in both types of banks, which is in line with the preference of governments towards bank stability. With respect to family ownership, the impact is negative for conventional banks but positive for Islamic ones, consistent with agency theory. These results are to some extent similar in the case of foreign ownership where it is associated with a higher payout policy in Islamic banks, but not significant in conventional ones. Our results are robust to an array of additional analyses including propensity score matching.     

Is spin-off policy an effective way to improve performance of Islamic banks? Evidence from Indonesia

Indonesia has adopted a dual banking system in which both conventional and Islamic banks operate. Most of the sharia-based banks, however, are still operating Islamic windows within their conventional entity. To strengthen the role of Islamic banking in the intermediation system, the government issued Islamic Banking Law No. 21/2008 to encourage Islamic windows of conventional banks to become a legal entity separate from their parent company. Because some Islamic windows have spun off in this fashion, we can employ a difference-in-difference approach to examine the effect of such a spin-off on Islamic banks’ performance, efficiency, and risk. Our study covers all Islamic commercial banks (including Islamic windows of conventional banks) in Indonesia from 2008–2019. We find that the performance and efficiency of full-fledged Islamic banks are significantly lower compared with Islamic windows of conventional banks. Moreover, our results show that financing risk increases after the spin-off. The inferior performance of full-fledged Islamic banks persists for four years after the spin-off. We also find that a conversion strategy results in better outcomes, particularly for profitability and efficiency, than a pure spin-off strategy.     

Islamic vs. conventional banking: Business model,efficiency and stability

How different are Islamic banks from conventional banks? Does the recent crisis justify a closer look at the Sharia-compliant business model for banking? When comparing conventional and Islamic banks, controlling for time-variant country-fixed effects, we find few significant differences in business orientation. There is evidence however, that Islamic banks are less cost-effective, but have a higher intermediation ratio, higher asset quality and are better capitalized. We also find large cross-country variation in the differences between conventional and Islamic banks as well as across Islamic banks of different sizes. Furthermore, we find that Islamic banks are better capitalized, have higher asset quality and are less likely to disintermediate during crises. The better stock performance of listed Islamic banks during the recent crisis is also due to their higher capitalization and better asset quality.     

A comparison of conventional versus Islamic banking customers attitudes and judgment

This investigates the impact of customer attitude and judgment regarding conventional and Islamic banking system in Pakistan. This study attempts to find out, how the customers of Islamic banks perceive about Islamic banking practices in terms of Shariah compliance and conventional banking system regarding earning more profits. This study consists on primary data through a well design questionnaire. Four hundred and thirty (430) questionnaires were distributed among different customers of all three types of banking, such as Islamic, conventional and stand-alone branches in order to investigate customer’s attitude and judgment toward banking system. The findings indicate that overall 28% of Islamic banking customers don’t know the essential concept of Islamic financial institution’s in Pakistan. Furthermore, 54% customers of conventional banking show their interest to convert their accounts toward Islamic banks.

     

Banking efficiency in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: A comparative study

We measure cost and profit efficiencies of banks operating in six GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) using heteroskedastic stochastic frontier (HSF) models. Our results show that measures of cost and profit efficiencies of banks vary widely across the six gulf countries over the same period. We examine whether cost and profit efficiencies of Islamic banks are significantly different from that of conventional banks. After allowing for bank risk, asset quality, environmental influences such as the level of interest rate, and country effect, we find that cost and profit efficiencies of Islamic banks are similar to that of conventional banks. Our results suggest that the country-specific variables have significant impact on cost and profit efficiencies of banks operating in GCC countries. Our findings indicate that cost and profit efficiencies of Islamic banks are more volatile than that of conventional banks.     

Bank-level stability factors and consumer confidence – A comparative study of Islamic and conventional banks’ product mix

This study examines the behaviour of key bank-level stability factors of liquidity, capital, risk-taking and consumer confidence in Islamic and conventional banks that operate in the same market. Using fixed effect for a sample of 194 banks of Gulf Cooperation Countries between 2000 and 2007, we found that liquidity is not determined by the bank's product mix but rather attributed to systematic factors. However, non-performing assets (representing loans to sub-prime borrowers) have a positive and significant relationship with liquidity, implying that during the crisis Islamic banks tend to take stringent risk strategies compared to conventional banks. Furthermore, Islamic banks generally tend to provide higher consumer confidence levels as they were more capitalized than conventional banks, although conventional banks had carried higher averages of liquidity compared to Islamic banks. Consumer confidence levels or depositors’ discipline as proxied by deposits and customer funding over liabilities generally appear to be higher in Islamic banks than conventional banks.     

Technical efficiency of Islamic and conventional banks with undesirable output: Evidence from a stochastic meta-frontier directional distance function

We examine technical efficiency of Islamic and conventional banks. We contribute to the literature by applying a stochastic meta-frontier directional distance function model with undesirable output, which helps to overcome misestimating technical efficiency. For a sample of banks from 28 countries, we find that a typical Islamic bank is less technically efficient compared to its conventional counterpart. This is due to Islamic banks using less advanced technology compared to conventional banks rather than group-specific technical inefficiency. The findings are robust across six geographical regions of the world.     

Firm valuations and board compensation: Evidence from alternative banking models

This study examines whether the board of directors' compensation schemes affect stock market valuations for banks in a dual banking system (Islamic and conventional banks). We employ an international sample of 11 countries for the period 2010–2015. Our results show that for the full sample (i.e. irrespective of the bank type), board of directors' compensation has a significant and positive impact on stock market valuations. For different bank types, we find that the positive effect of the board of directors' compensation on market valuations holds only for conventional banks, with insignificant evidence for their Islamic counterparts. We, also, examine the impact of Shari'ah supervisory board's compensation on Islamic banks value. Our results show that investors positively perceived and priced information related to this boards' compensation.     

On the role of Islamic and conventional banks in the monetary policy transmission in Malaysia: Do size and liquidity matter?

This paper empirically investigates the impact of monetary policy on the credit supply of Islamic versus conventional banks of Malaysia using an unbalanced panel dataset over the period 2005-2016. While estimating the effects of three alternative measures of monetary policy on banks' credit supply, we include several bank-specific and macroeconomic variables in the specification as control variables. We provide strong evidence on the existence of the credit channel of monetary policy transmission mechanism in Malaysia. Yet, we show that Islamic banks respond considerably less to changes in monetary policy instruments as compared to their conventional counterparts. We also find that the monetary policy measures affect small-sized banks and less-liquid banks more as compared to large-sized and more-liquid banks. Our findings suggest that for an effective monetary policy, there is a vital need to consider the nature of Islamic banking while devising any monetary policy instruments to manage credit supply in the economy.     

Dividend payout strategies and bank survival likelihood: A cross-country analysis

In this cross-country study, we examine whether dividend payout decisions affect the survival likelihood of banks. Using unique international banking data from 11 countries from 2010 to 2019, we find that higher levels of cash dividend payouts increase a bank's survival likelihood, as paying dividends lowers agency problems and cost of debt and facilitates greater public monitoring. Our extended analysis shows an inverted U-shaped relation between large dividends and survival likelihood. At higher levels, payout is related to a safer position of banks in terms of default; however, at very high levels of dividends, when the levels of payouts exceed a threshold, such payout lowers the likelihood of survival. We additionally investigate the effect of the bank type to assess whether differential effects could be realised under the constrained dividend model of Islamic banks compared to the conventional banking model. Our results, interestingly, show that the positive effect of dividend payouts on bank survival is more pronounced in conventional than Islamic banks. This finding is explained by the dominant liquidity management challenges pertaining to the Islamic banking business model in which banks retain more cash and pay lower dividends. Our findings offer important insights and policy implications for regulators, bankers and a broad set of stakeholders engaging with both banking sectors.     

Using accounting ratios to distinguish between Islamic and conventional banks in the GCC region

This study determines whether it is possible to distinguish between conventional and Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region on the basis of financial characteristics alone. Islamic banks operate under different principles, such as risk sharing and the prohibition of interest, yet both types of banks face similar competitive conditions. The combination of effects makes it unclear whether financial ratios will differ significantly between the two categories of banks. We input 26 financial ratios into logit, neural network, and k-means nearest neighbor classification models to determine whether researchers or regulators could use these ratios to distinguish between the two types of banks. Although the means of several ratios are similar between the two categories of banks, non-linear classification techniques (k-means nearest neighbors and neural networks) are able to correctly distinguish Islamic from conventional banks in out-of-sample tests at about a 92% success rate.     

Stakeholder Returns of Islamic Banks Versus Conventional Banks

Sharia principle shaping the Islamic banking model is most determinant on collection and deployment of funds with its ban on interest. This study aims to look at the results of funded activities in isolation for a healthier comparison between Islamic and conventional deposit banks with respect to their financial stakeholders. The differences are reflected as lower asset returns and lower returns for depositors of Islamic banks. These differences sustain throughout normal and crisis periods. Our findings show that despite differences in asset structures and returns, Islamic banks retain similar returns for shareholders to position themselves close to and in competition with their conventional counterparts.