Foreign bank penetration and the lending channel in emerging economies: Evidence from bank-level panel data

This paper examines the main implications of recently increasing foreign bank penetration on bank lending as a channel of monetary policy transmission in emerging economies. Using a dynamic panel model of loan growth, we investigate the loan granting behavior of 1273 banks in the emerging economies of Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe during the period from 1996 to 2003. Applying the pooled OLS, system GMM, and panel VAR estimators, we find consistent evidence that foreign banks are less responsive to monetary shocks in host countries, as they adjust their outstanding loan portfolios and interest rates to a lesser extent than domestic private banks, independent of their liquidity, capitalization, size, efficiency, and credit risk, and although there exists a bank lending channel in the emerging economies, it is declining in strength due to the increased level of foreign bank penetration. We also explore possible driving factors for the different responses of foreign and domestic banks to monetary policy shocks by investigating foreign banks’ different behavior during banking crises and tranquil periods, the effects of mode of entry to host countries, the home-country effects, and the response of foreign banks from OECD countries vs. all foreign countries including non-OECD countries. We suggest the access of foreign banks to funding from parent banks through internal capital markets as the most convincing explanation.     

Foreign bank entry,credit allocation and lending rates in emerging markets: Empirical evidence from Poland

Earlier studies have documented that foreign banks charge lower lending rates and interest spreads than domestic banks. We hypothesize that this may stem from the superior efficiency of foreign entrants that they decide to pass onto borrowers (“performance hypothesis”), but could also reflect a different loan allocation with respect to borrower transparency, loan maturity and currency (“portfolio composition hypothesis”). We are able to differentiate between the above hypotheses thanks to a novel dataset containing detailed bank-specific information for the Polish banking industry. Our findings demonstrate that banks differ significantly in terms of portfolio composition and we attest to the “portfolio composition hypothesis” by showing that, having controlled for portfolio composition, there are no differences in lending rates between banks.     

Deregulation and oligopolistic rivalry in bank deposit markets

This paper provides a partial equilibrium analysis of a deregulated market for bank deposits in which banks behave oligopolistically but entry and exit are freely permitted. It is demonstrated that the effects of variations in market interest rates, reserve requirements, and bank cost and demand conditions upon the market quantity of bank deposit money are fundamentally altered if the degree of bank rivalry adjusts endogenously. Hence, banking deregulation may produce significant changes in the relationships between these variables and the stock of deposit money.     

Privatization and bank performance in developing countries

We examine the postprivatization performance of 81 banks from 22 developing countries. Our results suggest that: (i) On average, banks chosen for privatization have a lower economic efficiency, and a lower solvency than banks kept under government ownership. (ii) In the postprivatization period, profitability increases but, depending on the type of owner, efficiency, risk exposure and capitalization may worsen or improve. However, (iii) Over time, privatization yields significant improvements in economic efficiency and credit risk exposure. (iv) We also find that newly privatized banks that are controlled by local industrial groups become more exposed to credit risk and interest rate risk after privatization.     

Foreign banks in syndicated loan markets

Foreign banks play a prominent role in syndicated loan markets. In this paper we examine foreign banks’ motives in participating in cross-border deals in 25 European countries. We find that usual explanations of foreign banking activities can only account partly for the high rate of foreign involvement in syndicated loan markets. The usual argument is that foreign banks are at a disadvantage because they lack soft information and thus they tend to lend to more transparent firms compared to their domestic counterparts. We find that this relationship only holds in relatively small financial systems. We illustrate different motivations for the large amount of cross border lending in large developed markets. In these markets foreign banks tend to lend to especially risky borrowers and projects.     

Foreign participation in local currency bond markets

Countries that cannot attract foreigners to invest in their local currency bonds run the risk of currency mismatches that can result in painful crises. We analyze foreign participation in the bond markets of over 40 countries. Bond markets in less developed countries have returns characterized by high variance and negative skewness, factors that we show are eschewed by U.S. investors. While results based on a three-moment CAPM indicate that it is diversifiable idiosyncratic risk that U.S. investors shun, our analysis suggests that countries can improve foreign participation by reducing macroeconomic instability.     

Developing cross-selling capability in key corporate bank relationships: the case of a Nordic Bank

This research focuses on the challenges in developing the cross-selling capability of a multinational European corporate bank operating in both the business and consumer markets. An extensive qualitative research design was carried out involving 50 interviews with chief financial officers (CFOs) and bank representatives from four European countries, eight workshops, and participant observation. The barriers to cross-selling experienced by the Bank are specifically: a lack of cooperation within organisational levels and units, non-existent information sharing among employees, underdeveloped internal services for cross-selling, resistance to change, and outdated CRM systems are identified as the five major internal challenges that banks have to cope with. Corporate customers however perceive that the five major challenges that inhibit the corporate banks’ ability to provide better services and to properly exploit cross-selling capability are: the lack of cross-asset management, inability to sell cross-asset services, fragmented organisational structure, the lack of sufficient internal marketing and communication, and lack of knowledge sharing. This study identifies ten major challenges—five that deal with the Bank’s internal personnel, and five identified by key corporate customers—that are essential to overcome to better address cross-selling efforts.

     

Conditional covariances and direct central bank interventions in the foreign exchange markets

In this paper, we investigate the effects of central bank interventions (CBIs) on the ex post correlation and covariance of exchange rates. Using a multivariate GARCH model with time-varying conditional covariances, we estimate the effects of CBIs on both the variances and covariance between the yen and the deutsche mark (the Euro) in terms of the US dollar. Our results suggest that coordinated CBIs not only tend to increase the volatility of exchange rates but also explain a significant amount of the covariance between the major currencies. We show that this result can be useful for short-run currency portfolio management.     

商业银行参与企业公司治理的国际经验

本文考察了主要发达国家商业银行在公司治理结构中的地位、方式以及发挥作用的条件,认为商业银行在公司治理中积极作用的发挥,取决于一国金融制度及其所决定的金融市场特征,并根据发达国家商业银行在公司治理结构中发挥的作用,对中国商业银行参与公司治理提出了若干建议。     

Central bank intervention and the intraday process of price formation in the currency markets

We propose a novel theory of the impact of sterilized spot interventions on the microstructure of currency markets that focuses on their liquidity. We analyze the effectiveness of intervention operations in a model of sequential trading in which i) a rational Central Bank faces a trade-off between policy motives and wealth maximization; ii) currency dealers' sole objective is to provide immediacy at a cost while maintaining a driftless expected foreign currency position; and iii) adverse selection, inventory, signaling, and portfolio balance considerations are absent by assumption. In this setting, and consistent with available empirical evidence, we find that i) the mere likelihood of a future intervention—even if expected, non-secret, and uninformative—is sufficient to generate endogenous effects on exchange rate levels, to increase exchange rate volatility, and to impact bid-ask spreads; and ii) these effects are exacerbated by the intensity of dealership competition, the extent of the Central Bank's policy trade-off, and the credibility of its threat of future actions.     

Competitive and value effects of bank privatization in developed countries

A special issue of the Journal of Banking and Finance (2005) devoted to the performance of privatized banks in middle- and low-income countries shows mixed results. In this paper, we present evidence that shows that privatized banks in developed countries have experienced significant improvements in operating performance. The improvement in performance remains significant after controlling for persistence in bank performance. A comparison of the performance of privatized banks in developed and developing countries suggests that privatization has encouraged excessive risk taking among privatized banks in developing countries, with the consequence that those banks carry large non-performing assets than their counterparts in the developed countries. We also observe that consistent with the competitive effects hypothesis, investors view privatization announcements as foreshadowing bad news for rival banks.     

Foreign bank entry,deregulation and bank efficiency: Lessons from the Australian experience

This study considers the impact of foreign bank entry on banking efficiency in Australia during the post-deregulation period 1988–2001. Using Data Envelopment Analysis, Malmquist Indices and stochastic frontier analysis, we find foreign banks more efficient than domestic banks, which however did not result in superior profits. Major Australian banks have used size as a barrier to entry to new entrants. Furthermore, bank efficiency has increased post-deregulation and the competition resulting from diversity in bank types was important to prompt efficiency improvements. Finally, the recession of the early 1990s resulted in a distinct shift in the process of efficiency changes.     

Bank reputation, bank commitment, and the effects of competition in credit markets

This article discusses the effects of credit market competitionon a bank's incentive to keep its commitment to lend to a borrowerwhen the borrower's credit quality deteriorates. It is shownthat, unlike in the borrower's commitment problem to keep borrowingfrom the same bank in 'good' times, the increased competitionmay strengthen a bank's incentive to keep its commitment. Banksoffer loans with commitment to the highest quality borrowersbut, when faced with competition from bond markets, they alsogive these loans to lower quality borrowers. An increase inthe number of banks has a non-monotonic effect; new banks reinforcea bank's incentive only if there are a small number of banks.     

The integration of bank syndicated loan and junk bond markets

This paper hypothesizes that the special role of banks as corporate quasi-insiders has been changing due to developments in informational, legal and institutional infrastructures of syndicated loan markets. We investigate the integration of intermediated and disintermediated financial markets through highly leveraged transaction (HLT) syndicated loans during the 1990s. We demonstrate that, with the emergence of traded HLT syndicated loans as an alternative high-yield asset to high-yield bonds, market integration has dramatically increased. Taking the late 1980s and 1990s together, different factors explain the movement of credit spreads of the two markets. HLT loan market’s spreads are strongly affected by bank liquidity. Bank liquidity’s effect on HLT loan spreads disappears after 1993. From 1994–1999, junk bond market liquidity factors affect bank loan pricing. We interpret these changes as evidence of the erosion of bank specialness.     

The impact of sovereign rating actions on bank ratings in emerging markets

This paper analyses the effects of sovereign rating actions on the credit ratings of banks in emerging markets, using a sample from three global rating agencies across 54 countries for 1999–2009. Despite widespread attention to sovereign ratings and bank ratings, no previous study has investigated the link in this manner. We find that sovereign rating upgrades (downgrades) have strong effects on bank rating upgrades (downgrades). The impact of sovereign watch status on bank rating actions is much weaker and often insignificant. The sensitivity of banks’ ratings to sovereign rating actions is affected by the countries’ economic and financial freedom and by macroeconomic conditions. Ratings of banks with different ownership structures are all influenced strongly by the sovereign rating, with some variation depending on the countries’ characteristics. Emerging market bank ratings are less likely to follow sovereign rating downgrades during the recent financial crisis period.     

Does bank competition alleviate credit constraints in developing countries?

Whether competition helps or hinders firms’ access to finance, particularly in the developing world, is in itself a much debated question in the economic literature and in policy circles. This paper considers the consequences of bank competition on credit constraints using firm level data covering 69 developing and emerging countries. In addition to the classical concentration measure, competition is assessed by computing three non-structural measures (Boone indicator, Lerner index and H-statistic). The results show that bank competition alleviates credit constraints and that bank concentration measure is not a robust predictor of a firm’s access to finance. The study highlights that bank competition not only leads to less severe loan approval decisions but also reduces borrower discouragement.     

Hot money in bank credit flows to emerging markets during the banking globalization era

This paper investigates the relative importance of hot money in bank credit and portfolio flows from the US to 18 emerging markets over the period 1988–2012. We deploy state-space models à la Kalman filter to identify the unobserved hot money as the temporary component of each type of flow. The analysis reveals that the importance of hot money relative to the permanent component in bank credit flows has significantly increased during the 2000s relative to the 1990s. This finding is robust to controlling for the influence of push and pull factors in the two unobserved components. The evidence supports indirectly the view that global banks have played an important role in the transmission of the global financial crisis to emerging markets, and endorses the use of regulations to manage international capital flows.     

The patterns of cross-border bank mergers and shareholdings in OECD countries

In recent years there has been a surge in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in all sectors of economic activity. Cross-border operations have followed this trend, creating global companies operating in all major world markets. In this paper we study the pattern of cross-border M&As in the banking industry relative to the non-financial sector of the economy and investigate which factors make it more likely that a bank will expand its activities abroad. We find that cross-border M&As are rarer in banking than in other sectors, possibly owing to the importance of information asymmetries in banking relationships and to regulatory restrictions. Using data on almost 2500 banks from 29 OECD countries, we also show that the most significant features of banks with foreign equity interests relate to efficiency: banks with cross-border shareholdings are on average larger, more profitable, and based in countries with a more highly developed banking market.     

The impact of foreign bank entry in emerging markets: Evidence from India

This paper uses the entry of foreign banks into India during the 1990s—analyzing variation in both the timing of the new foreign banks’ entries and in their location—to estimate the effect of foreign bank entry on domestic credit access and firm performance. In contrast to the belief that foreign bank entry should improve credit access for all firms, the estimates indicate that foreign banks financed only a small set of very profitable firms upon entry, and that on average, firms were 8 percentage points less likely to have a loan after a foreign bank entry because of a systematic drop in domestic bank loans. Similar estimates are obtained using the location of pre-existing foreign firms as an instrument for foreign bank locations. Moreover, the observed decline in loans is greater among smaller firms, firms with fewer tangible assets, and firms affiliated with business groups. The drop in credit also appears to adversely affect the performance of smaller firms with greater dependence on external financing. Overall, this evidence is consistent with the exacerbation of information asymmetries upon foreign bank entry.