Modes of foreign bank entry and effects on lending rates: Theory and evidence

Policy makers who decide to liberalize foreign bank entry frequently put limitations on the mode of entry. We study how different entry modes affect the lending rates of foreign and domestic banks. In our model, the mode of entry determines whether a foreign bank inherits a customer base. This, in turn, affects how information is distributed between foreign and domestic banks. We show that this distribution of information about incumbent customers leads to stronger competition if foreign entry occurs through a greenfield investment. As a result, domestic bank lending rates are lower after greenfield entry. We find empirical support for this prediction for a sample of banks from 10 Eastern European countries for the period 1995–2003.     

Does corruption hamper bank lending? Macro and micro evidence

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of corruption in bank lending. Corruption is expected to hamper bank lending, as it is closely related to legal enforcement, which has been shown to promote banks’ willingness to lend. Nevertheless the similarities between the consequences for bank lending of law enforcement and corruption are misleading, as they consider only judiciary corruption. Corruption can also occur in lending and may then be beneficial for bank lending via bribes given by borrowers to enhance their chances of receiving loans. This assumption may be validated particularly in the presence of pronounced risk aversion by banks, resulting in greater reluctance on the part of banks to grant loans. We perform country-level and bank-level estimations to investigate these assumptions. Corruption reduces bank lending in both sets of estimations. However, bank-level estimations show that the detrimental effect of corruption is reduced when bank risk aversion increases, even leading at times to situations wherein corruption fosters bank lending. Additional controls show that corruption does not increase bank credit by favoring only bad loans. Therefore, our findings show that while the overall effect of corruption is to hamper bank lending, it can alleviate firm’s financing obstacles.     

Reserve requirements and the bank lending channel in China

This paper examines how reserve requirements influence the transmission of monetary policy through the bank lending channel in China while also taking into account the role of bank ownership. The implementation of Chinese monetary policy is characterized by the reliance on the reserve requirements as a regular policy tool with frequent adjustments. Using a large dataset of 170 Chinese banks for the period 2004–2013, we analyze the reaction of loan supply to changes in reserve requirements. We find no evidence of the bank lending channel through the use of reserve requirements. We observe, nonetheless, that changes in reserve requirements influence loan growth of banks. The same findings hold true for other monetary policy instruments. Further, we show that the bank ownership format influences transmission of monetary policy.     

Pyramidal group structure and bank risk in Thailand

This paper investigates how banks and finance companies operate in business groups. Using uniquely detailed ownership data from Thailand, we find that the controlling shareholders extensively use pyramids to control banks and finance companies and assign different lending strategies across pyramidal tiers. Lower-tier banks tend to extend loans more aggressively and perform more poorly, while upper tier banks carry out more profitable investments. After the crisis hit, upper-tier banks survived and almost all lower-tier banks went bankrupt. Our results suggest that the multilayer organizational structure of bank ownership can affect a bank’s lending behavior and its resistance to economic shocks.     

The Theory of the Second Best and the Competitive Equilibrium Model

We study the international transmission of bank liquidity shocks from multinational, Islamic, bank-holding companies to their subsidiaries. Based on a total sample of 120 Islamic and conventional bank subsidiaries, we test whether foreign bank lending for Islamic and conventional banks is determined by different factors. We estimate a model that includes subsidiary and parent bank characteristics as well as host and home country variables. Our empirical findings show that lending is negatively affected by the fragility of conventional parent banks' subsidiaries. Nevertheless, we show that parent Islamic banks do not significantly affect lending by subsidiaries. Finally, we examine the market discipline regarding the transmission of liquidity shocks. We also find that reduction in foreign Islamic bank lending is stronger for those that are dependent on the interbank market. We establish that the depositors react to a deterioration of bank performance and punish their institutions by withdrawing their money. We show that market discipline has a more important role for Islamic banks, whereas liquidity needs determine the change in conventional banks.     

Lenders on the storm of wholesale funding shocks: saved by the central bank?

We provide empirical evidence on banks’ responses to shocks in the wholesale funding market, using data of 181 euro area banks over the period from August 2007 to June 2013. Responses to funding liquidity shocks for both banks’ lending volumes and loan rates, to households and corporates, are analysed in a panel VAR framework. We thereby distinguish banks by country, extent of Eurosystem borrowing, bank size and capitalization. The results show that shocks in the securities and interbank markets have significant effects on loan rates and credit supply, particularly of banks in stressed countries of the periphery. The results also suggest that central bank liquidity has mitigated this effect on lending volumes. Lending to nonfinancial corporations is more sensitive to wholesale funding shocks than lending to households. Lending volumes of large banks that are typically more dependent on wholesale funding and banks with large exposure to sovereign bonds show stronger responses to wholesale funding shocks.     

Large lending and banks performance. Is there any relationship? Empirical evidence from US banks

Large lending in the banking industry has sparked concerns about banks’ efficiency performance, particularly, if it is related to their credit risk, as trade credit, provided by large, creditworthy firms. We provide evidence of a rather neglected issue regarding the impact of large lending on banks’ efficiency using cost and profit stochastic functions. A unique dataset was constructed concerning all US banks collected from the Statistics on Depository Institutions report compiled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Our sample contains US banks tracked yearly for the period 2010–2017, creating an unbalanced panel of year observations. An econometric framework based on nested non-neutral frontiers was developed to estimate the influence and the decomposition of large lending on the three banks’ performance aspects. Moreover, different types of frontiers aiming at the cost and profit sides have been investigated, and the associated elasticities have been calculated. We notice that large lending plays a crucial role in banks’ technical efficiency. Variations among different frontier models, type of bank and size, banks’ ownership structure, and macroeconomic conditions appear to be present. By considering all capital adequacy asset quality management earnings liquidity parameters, we notice that banks’ financial strength affects banks’ efficiency.     

Did foreign banks stay committed to emerging Europe during recent financial crises?

Our objective is to investigate empirically the behavior of foreign banks with respect to real loan growth during periods of financial crisis for a set of countries in which foreign banks dominate the banking sectors due primarily to having taken over large existing former state-owned banks. The eight countries are among the most developed in emerging Europe, their banking sectors having been modernized by the middle of the last decade. We consider a data period that includes an initial credit boom (2005 – 2007) followed by the global financial crisis (2008 & 2009) and the onset of the Eurozone crisis (2010). Our two innovations with respect to the existing literature on banking during the financial crisis are to separate foreign banks into two categories, namely, subsidiaries of the Big 6 European multinational banks (MNBs) and all other foreign-controlled banks, and to take account of the impact of exchange rates during the period. Our results show that bank lending was impacted adversely by both crises but that the two types of foreign banks behaved differently. The Big 6 banks remained committed to the region in that their lending behavior was not different from that of domestic banks supporting the notion that these countries are treated as a “second home market” by these European MNBs. Contrariwise, the other foreign banks active in the region were involved in fueling the credit boom but then decreased their lending aggressively during the crisis periods. Our results also indicate that bank behavior in countries having flexible exchange rate regimes differs from that in those in (or effectively in) the Eurozone. Our results suggest that both innovations matter for studying bank behavior during crisis periods in the region and, by extension, to other small countries in which banking sectors are dominated by foreign financial institutions having different business models.     

The Number of Bank Relationships of SMEs: A Disaggregated Analysis of Changes in the Swiss Loan Market

This paper investigates changes in the number of bank relationships of small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland from 1996 to 2002. It differentiates between overall bank relationships and lending relationships and disaggregates the loan market with respect to firm sizes, industries and banking groups. On average, bank lending declined, and the concentration of lending relationships increased. The changes seem to have been driven by demand and supply for medium-sized firms, but only by supply for micro and small firms. Supply-side reductions resulted from a merger and changes in credit risk management by major banks. We find evidence of increasing specialization of larger banks on transaction lending and of smaller and regional banks on relationship lending.     

The interaction between macroprudential policy and monetary policy: Overview

This paper presents the main findings of an International Banking Research Network initiative examining the interaction between monetary policy and macroprudential policy in determining international bank lending. We give an overview on the data, empirical specifications and results of the seven papers from the initiative. The papers are from a range of core and smaller advanced economies, and emerging markets . The main findings are as follows. First, there is evidence that macroprudential policy in recipient countries can partly offset the spillover effects of monetary policy conducted in core countries. Meanwhile, domestic macroprudential policy in core countries can also affect the cross‐border transmission of domestic monetary policy via lending abroad, by limiting the increase in lending by less strongly capitalized banks. Second, the findings highlight that studying heterogeneities across banks provides complementary insights to studies using more aggregate data and focusing on average effects. In particular, we find that individual bank characteristics such as bank size or GSIB status play a first‐order role in the transmission of these policies. Finally, the impacts differ considerably across prudential policy instruments, which also suggests the importance of more granular analysis.     

Are private banks more efficient than public banks?

We study whether bank efficiency is related to bank ownership in Russia. We find that foreign banks are more efficient than domestic private banks and, surprisingly, that domestic private banks are not more efficient than domestic public banks. These results are not driven by the choice of production process, the bank's environment, management's risk preferences, the bank's activity mix or size, the econometric approach, or the introduction of deposit insurance. The policy conclusion is that the efficiency of the Russian banking system may benefit more from increased levels of competition and greater access of foreign banks than from bank privatization.     

Monetary policy and bank lending in a low interest rate environment: Diminishing effectiveness?

This paper analyses the effectiveness of monetary policy on bank lending in a low interest rate environment. Based on a sample of 108 large international banks, our empirical analysis suggests that monetary policy is less effective in stimulating bank lending growth when interest rates reach a very low level. This result holds after controlling for business and financial cycle conditions and different bank-specific characteristics such as liquidity, capitalisation, funding costs, bank risk and income diversification. We find that the impact of low rates on the profitability of banks’ traditional intermediation activity helps explain the subdued evolution of lending in the period 2010–14.     

Bank overall financial strength: Islamic versus conventional banks

A number of recent studies compare the performance of Islamic and conventional banks with the use of individual financial ratios or efficiency frontier techniques. The present study extends this strand of the literature, by comparing Islamic banks, conventional banks, and banks with an Islamic window with the use of a bank overall financial strength index. This index is developed with a multicriteria methodology that allows us to aggregate various criteria capturing bank capital strength, asset quality, earnings, liquidity, and management quality in controlling expenses. We find that banks differ significantly in terms of individual financial ratios; however, the difference of the overall financial strength between Islamic and conventional banks is not statistically significant. This finding is confirmed with both univariate comparisons and in multivariate regression estimations. When we look at the bank financial strength within regions, we find that conventional banks outperform both the Islamic banks and the banks with Islamic window in the case of Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council; however, Islamic banks perform better in the MENA and Senegal region. Second stage regressions also reveal that the bank overall financial strength index is influenced by various country-specific attributes. These include control of corruption, government effectiveness, and operation in one of the seven countries that are expected to drive the next big wave in Islamic finance.     

Shocks to bank capital: evidence from UK banks at home and away

This article assesses how shocks to bank capital may influence a bank's portfolio behaviour using novel evidence from a UK bank panel data set from a period that predates the recent financial crisis. Focusing on the behaviour of bank loans, we extract the dynamic response of a bank to innovations in its capital and in its regulatory capital buffer. We find that innovations in a bank's capital in this (precrisis) sample period were coupled with a loan response that lasted up to 3 years. The international presence of UK banks allows us to identify a specific driver of capital shocks in our data, independent of bank lending to UK residents. Specifically, we use write-offs on loans to nonresidents to instrument bank capital's impact on UK resident lending. A fall in capital brought about a significant drop in lending in particular, to Private Nonfinancial Corporations (PNFC). In contrast, household lending increased when capital fell, which may indicate that, in this precrisis period, banks substituted into less risky assets when capital was short.     

Collateralized Lending by Indian Banks: Some Explanations and Policy Implications

This paper draws a parallel between the extent of unsecured lending that a bank does and the screening effort extended by the bank. Since unsecured lending requires screening on the part of the bank, higher the percentage of unsecured loans in total loans, higher is likely to be the screening effort while processing loan applications. Using panel data relating to banks in India, we find that on an average a higher extent of screening effort or unsecured loans is likely to be provided by banks that are large, have low level of non-performing assets, and are in the private sector. Further, persistence in the extent of unsecured lending seems to suggest that any change in unsecured lending/ screening effort is likely to be rather slow.

     

Home sweet host: A cross‐country perspective on prudential and monetary policy spillovers through global banks

Prudential regulation of banks is multi‐layered: policy changes by home‐country authorities affect banks’ global operations across many jurisdictions; policy changes by host‐country authorities shape banks’ operations in the host jurisdiction regardless of the nationality of the parent bank. Do these policies create (unintended) cross‐border spillovers? Similarly, monetary policy actions by major central banks may also have effects on the behaviour of banks in other countries. This paper examines the effect that changes in home‐ and host‐country prudential measures have on cross‐border dollar credit provision, and how these interact with US monetary policy. We first run panel regressions with both layers of regulation, to examine which has a greater effect on cross‐border lending. We then use a novel approach to decompose growth in cross‐border bank lending into separate home, host and common components, and then match each with the corresponding home or host policies. Our results suggest that prudential policies can have spillover effects, which depend on the instrument used and on whether a bank's home or host country implemented them. Home policies tend to have larger spillovers on cross‐border US dollar lending than host policies. We also find that a tightening of US monetary policy can compound the spillovers of some prudential measures.     

Public ownership of banks and economic growth

In an influential article, La Porta et al. (2002) argue that public ownership of banks is associated with lower GDP growth. We show that this relationship does not hold for all countries, but depends on a country's initial conditions, in particular its financial development and political institutions. Public ownership is harmful only if a country has low financial development and low institutional quality. The negative impact of public ownership on growth fades quickly as the financial and political system develops. In highly developed countries, we find no or even positive effects. Policy conclusions for individual countries are likely to be misleading if such heterogeneity is ignored.     

Bank lending and interest on excess reserves: An empirical investigation

This paper econometrically tests for effects on bank lending of the Federal Reserve’s policy of paying interest on excess reserves (IOER). Following the 2008 financial crisis, US banks decreased their loan allocations and increased holdings of excess reserves. A model of bank asset allocation shows that when the rate of IOER is higher than other short-term rates, banks will switch from zero excess reserves to a regime with higher excess reserves and lower lending. Using a sample of panel data on US banks from 2000 through 2018, we find evidence of a switch to a positive excess reserve regime in the post-crisis period. Controlling for market interest rates, loan demand, and economic activity, we find that IOER accounts for the majority of the decline in bank lending after the financial crisis.     

Determinants of income diversification: evidence from Chinese banks

This article presents an analysis of the determinants of Chinese commercial banks’ income diversification decisions. Using a panel dataset comprising 88 Chinese domestic banks from 2003 to 2010, we find that bank diversification reflects a variety of managerial abilities: insolvency risks, cost, capital position, asset scale and ownership structure. A larger ratio of banking assets to gross domestic product and lower interest spread lead to a higher level of diversification. Moreover, national banks and regional banks have different strategic responses to the macroeconomic, and indeed, regulatory environment. Resisting shocks from the banking sector and the macro economy, and supplementing liquidity shortages from intermediation business seem to be the driving forces of national banks to operate in non-banking sectors.     

Bank efficiency in South‐Eastern Europe

This study examines the cost and profit efficiency of banking sectors in six transition countries of South‐Eastern Europe over the period 1998–2008. Using a stochastic frontier approach, our analysis reveals that the average cost efficiency of South‐Eastern European banks is 68.59 percent, and the average profit efficiency is 53.87 percent. Regressions on the determinants of bank efficiency show that foreign banks are characterized by higher profit efficiency but lower cost efficiency, and government‐owned banks are associated with lower profit efficiency than domestic private banks. However, the efficiency gap between foreign‐, domestic private‐ and government‐owned banks narrows over time. We also find that the market power of a bank has a positive association with both cost and profit efficiency. Institutional development, proxied by progress in banking regulatory reforms, privatization and enterprise corporate governance restructuring, also has a positive impact on bank efficiency.