Competition from Large, Multimarket Firms and the Performance of Small, Single-Market Firms: Evidence from the Banking Industry

We offer and test two competing hypotheses for the consolidation trend in banking using U.S. banking industry data over the period 1982–2000. Under the efficiency hypothesis , technological progress improved the performance of large, multimarket firms relative to small, single-market firms, whereas under the hubris hypothesis , consolidation was largely driven by corporate hubris. Our results are consistent with an empirical dominance of the efficiency hypothesis over the hubris hypothesis—on net, technological progress allowed large, multimarket banks to compete more effectively against small, single-market banks in the 1990s than in the 1980s. We also isolate the extent to which technological progress occurred through scale versus geographic effects and how they affected the performance of small, single-market banks through revenues versus costs. The results may shed light as well on some of the research and policy issues related to community banking.     

The role of on- and off-balance-sheet leverage of banks in the late 2000s crisis

Extensive regulatory changes and technological advances have transformed banking systems to a great extent. Banks have reacted to the challenges posed by the new operating environment by creating new products and expanding their activities to some uncharted business areas. In this paper, we study how modern banking which gave birth to the off-balance-sheet leverage activities affected the risk profile of U.S. banks as well as the level of systemic risk before and after the onset of the late 2000s financial crisis. Towards this, we separate on- from off-balance-sheet leverage and capture the latter with different, yet complementary, measures which do not exist in the current literature. Special attention is paid on the deleveraging process that occurred in the banking market after the crisis erupted, which is an additional innovative feature of this study. Our findings reveal that leverage, both explicit and hidden off-the-balance-sheet, increases the individual risk of banking firms making them vulnerable to financial shocks. Reverse leverage, on the other hand, is beneficial for individual banks’ health, but is found to be harmful for financial stability. We also demonstrate that the banks which concentrate on traditional lines of business typically carry less risk compared to those involved with modern financial instruments.     

The impact of network size on bank branch performance

Despite significant technological innovation in retail banking services delivery, the number of US bank branches has grown steadily over time. Further, more and more of these branches are held by banks with large branch networks. This paper assesses the implications of these developments by examining measures of branch performance and asking how these measure vary across institutions with different branch network sizes. Our findings suggest that banks with mid-sized branch networks may be at a competitive disadvantage in branching activities. We find no systematic relationship between branch network size and overall institutional profitability, perhaps because banking organizations optimize the size of their branch network operations as part of an overall strategy involving both branch-based and non-branch-based activities.     

Community bank mergers and their impact on small business lending

There have been increasing concerns about the potential of larger banks acquiring community banks and the declining number of community banks, which would significantly reduce small business lending (SBL) and disrupt relationship lending. This paper examines the roles and characteristics of U.S. community banks in the past decade, covering the recent economic boom and downturn. We analyze risk characteristics of acquired community banks, compare pre- and post-acquisition performance, and investigate how the acquisitions have affected SBL. Contrary to the concerns, our analysis shows that the overall amount of SBL increases more after a merger when a community bank is acquired by a large bank. Data also suggest an overall (regardless of mergers) declining SBL trend for all bank size groups. In fact, the decline in the SBL ratio, on average, has been more severe among community banks, relative to large banks. Our results indicate that mergers involving community bank targets over the past decade have enhanced the overall safety and soundness of the banking system without adversely impacting SBL.     

Vertical integration to avoid contracting with potential competitors: Evidence from bankers' banks

We examine a vertical integration decision within the commercial banking industry. During the last quarter of the 20th century, some community banks reduced their traditional reliance on correspondent banks for upstream products and services by joining bankers' banks, a form of business cooperative. Research on vertical integration focuses primarily on firm-specific investment, market power, and government regulation. However, this case is difficult to explain in terms of these standard vertical integration motives. Our evidence suggests that bankers' banks are a response to technological change and deregulation that results in increased costs faced by community banks in dealing with correspondent banks as both suppliers and potential competitors. For instance, loan participations require sharing proprietary information about major loan customers, something a community bank would not want to provide to a potential competitor.     

中国银行业结构性全要素生产率增长研究

在深化银行业供给侧结构性改革背景下,如何科学评价银行业的结构性全要素生产率(TFP)增长具有重要意义。区别于早期针对个体样本的技术性TFP增长研究,本文通过构建并分解加总的Luenberger生产率指标对我国银行业以及不同类型银行的结构性TFP增长及来源进行有效评价。结果显示,研究期间,我国银行业的结构性TFP增长表现良好,其中,整体技术进步是主要驱动力;进一步分解发现,制度创新改善和加总的个体技术进步推动了银行业结构性TFP增长。在整体效率变化方面,加总的个体技术效率变化和结构效率变化都有待提高,其中,范围效率变化是抑制结构效率改善的主要因素。考虑不同类型银行,制度创新变化对所有类型银行的结构性TFP增长都影响显著,加总的个体技术变化对股份制和地区性银行的结构性TFP增长贡献更突出;加总的个体技术效率变化、结构效率变化、范围效率变化和规模效率变化对不同类型银行的结构性TFP增长作用有限。     

The political economy of relationship banking

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, banks need to reevaluate their position in light of profound changes in the economic, social, and political landscape. On the one hand, we emphasize the benefits of relationship banking, which establishes close contact with bank customers. Through a long-term orientation, relationship banking aligns incentives and supports the long-term needs of bank customers, leading to reduced inequality and greater firm innovation. On the other hand, the interaction between politics and relationship banking can have dark sides. First, with new borders arising and competition in banking affected, relationship banking might be particularly prone to political interference. Second, a shock to the relationship bank can be transmitted to its borrowers. We analyze how relationship banking can overcome its drawbacks.     

INTERNET INVESTMENT BANKING: THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ON RELATIONSHIP BANKING

The production "technology" of investment banking, particularly in the pricing and distribution of securities offerings, has long depended on the ability of bankers to build and maintain networks of relationships with institutional investors and client firms. Among other benefits, these relationships enabled banks to economize on communications with investors at a time when communicating with the investment community was quite costly. But recent advances in information technology are forcing banks to reevaluate this relationship-based technology. For example, Goldman Sachs recently purchased a stake in Wit Capital's efforts to build a retail distribution channel via the Internet. And William Hambrecht, founder of Hambrect & Quist, has gone so far as to propose that IPOs be put up for auction over the Internet.
This article offers both historical and economic perspective on these technological innovations in investment banking. In so doing, it provides a framework for thinking about how this segment of the industry is likely to evolve in the near future. It also discusses how advances in information technology coupled with the increasing codification of investment banking practices could reduce the central role of human capital and relationships elsewhere within investment banks, and how this might influence both the organization of individual banks and the industry in general.     

Technological innovations in the Indian banking industry: the late bloomer

Given that technological innovations in the banking sector in industrialised countries have been shown to increase productivity of this industry around the world, then why did India shy away from adopting this technology until the 1990s? Why has India been a late adopter of technology in the banking industry when it could have reaped the benefits from the existing R&D expertise developed by innovators and early adopters? This article charts out the path of technological innovation in the Indian banking industry post-economic liberalisation (1991-2) and identifies initial conditions in terms of competitive environment and regulatory pressures that have contributed to the diffusion of these innovations. The article highlights the role of labour unions in public sector banks and their initial opposition to technological adoption. The empirical analysis demonstrates the superior performance of the early adopters of technology (private sector and foreign banks) as measured by productivity, returns on equity, and market share, as compared to the late or passive adopters (public sector banks).     

The Relaxation of Entry Barriers in the Banking Industry: An Empirical Investigation

Until recently, state laws restricted entry into local banking markets in many states by limiting both branching and multibank holding company (MBHC) operations. To the extent that these laws impeded entry into local banking markets, the removal or relaxation of the restrictions should have reduced barriers to entry, leading to more competitive price levels in the affected markets. This paper tests for such effects by examining the changes in deposit interest rates offered by banks operating in markets affected by liberalization of state banking law relative to the changes in deposit interest rates offered during the same time period by banks operating in markets not affected by such liberalization. We find evidence that liberalization of state laws restricting intrastate MBHC operations, interstate branches, and interstate MBHC operations caused deposit interest rates to become more competitive. We, however, find no evidence of such effects associated with the removal of restrictions on intrastate branching.     

Potential Competitive Effects of Basel II on Banks in SME Credit Markets in the United States

We examine the likely competitive effects of implementation of Basel II capital requirements on banks in the market for credit to SMEs in the U.S. Similar competitive effects from Basel II may occur for other credits and financial instruments in the U.S. and other nations. We address whether reduced risk weights for SME credits extended by large banking organizations that adopt the Advanced Internal Ratings-Based (A-IRB) approach of Basel II might significantly adversely affect the competitive positions of other organizations. The analyses suggest only relatively minor competitive effects on most community banks because the large A-IRB adopters tend to make very different types of SME loans to different types of borrowers than community banks. However, there may be significant adverse effects on the competitive positions of large non-A-IRB banking organizations because the data do not suggest any strong segmentation in SME credit markets among large organizations. JEL classification: G21, G28, G38, L51     

How the Internet affects output and performance at community banks

Internet web sites have become an important alternative distribution channel for most banking institutions. However, we still know little about the impact of this delivery channel on bank performance. We observe 424 community banks among the first wave of US banks to adopt transactional banking web sites in the late-1990s, and compare the change in their 1999–2001 financial performance to that of 5175 branching-only community banks. Whereas today virtually all viable community banking franchises offer the Internet banking channel, studying this earlier time period allows us to make clean comparisons between subsamples of “brick-and-mortar” and “click-and-mortar” community banks. We find that Internet adoption improved community bank profitability, chiefly through increased revenues from deposit service charges. Internet adoption was also associated with movements of deposits from checking accounts to money market deposit accounts, increased use of brokered deposits, and higher average wage rates for bank employees. We find little evidence of changes in loan portfolio mix. Our findings suggest that these initial click-and-mortar banks (and their customers) used the Internet channel as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, physical branches.     

金融科技与银行价值链的重塑

金融科技在显著提升银行服务水平和经营效率的同时,也对银行业的竞争环境产生了深刻影响,商业银行在服务场景和渠道、客户信息以及资金等方面的传统竞争优势受到挑战.为快速获取必要的金融科技能力,银行加速推进数字化转型,并在其价值链的多个环节与科技企业开展合作.银行价值链由封闭的自我循环模式转向开放的合作模式,且价值链中的高附加值活动存在向少数企业集中的趋势.银行业的风险特征也由此发生重要变化:传统的战略风险、信用风险、流动性风险、操作风险、法律风险与系统性风险依然存在且变得更加复杂;科技风险、网络风险与数据安全等问题日渐凸显.作为应对,我国应结合银行业的实际情况,对现有银行监管框架和模式进行再评估,督促指导银行在推进数字化转型的过程中密切关注相关风险,进一步加强监管能力建设,以更好地守住不发生系统性金融风险的底线.     

Do more competitive banks have less market power? The evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Studies that have explored the competitive behaviour of banks frequently arrive at divergent conclusions because they use different measures of competition. This study first discusses these various measures of competition and their divergence from a theoretical perspective and then employs them to measure the competitiveness of Central and Eastern European banks and to investigate whether more competitive banks really have less market power. We find that these banks increase their market power when there is low banking concentration and do not necessarily become less competitive. Moreover, a more concentrated banking market does not enhance the market power of banks and does not make them less competitive, and more competitive banks do not necessarily have less market power. This latter outcome ensues because revenue and production reactions to cost evolution are either positively related – or completely unrelated – to the competitive behaviour of banks.     

Monetary policy,bank competition and regional credit cycles: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

This paper examines how competition in the banking sector affects the transmission of monetary policy and the variation of credit expansion across regions in the United States. Using the U.S. branching deregulation between 1994 to 2008 as an exogenous change in banks’ competition, we analyze how bank competition affects monetary policy transmission through the bank lending channel. The results show that competition strengthens the impact of monetary policy on bank loan supply. We then show that states with a more deregulated banking sector were more affected by monetary conditions in the years leading to the Great Recession. Specifically, the effect of loose monetary conditions on the expansion of households’ debt was stronger in states that had fewer bank branching restrictions. The results suggest that variations in the level of bank competition may have amplified regional asymmetries in the years leading to the Great Recession.     

The effects of the current turbulent times on American multinational banking : An overview

Turbulent times are nothing new in the long sweep of financial and monetary history. Nonetheless, the turbulence of the current period has some unique features in terms of both its causes and its long-run effects on the financial markets. Three factors in particular would seem to set the current period apart from previous turbulent periods. First, most previous periods of global financial difficulties were associated either with wars or with acute liquidity crises in the banking system. These factors have been present to some extent in the current episode. However, in addition there has been a dramatic change in the global monetary regime that has played a major role in the present turbulence. Second, most previous crises were not accompanied by technological changes of the magnitude of the current computer/information revolution. And third, no previous crisis occurred in the context of a highly regulated banking industry attempting to adjust to much higher levels of risk, much faster paces of technological change, and much greater price and non-price competition from both traditional and non-traditional competitors in the global financial markets. These factors have radically changed the nature of multinational banking and accelerated pressures to deregulate the price fixing and entry restriction parts of the American financial regulatory system. Many of the current technological, competitive and regulatory issues facing multinational banks have their roots in the unstable and inflationary global monetary regime of the past decade. High and volatile inflation and interest rates, fluctuating currencies, and a long and deep recession have both changed and raised the risks facing multinational banks. Banks have responded over the past decade by attempting to manage this greater risk more carefully through diversification and by developing new products and services that are in demand in this riskier environment, including better and cheaper means of cash management and a richer menu of fixed and variable rate bank deposit and loan products. While the major purpose of this paper is to review how American multinational banks adapted — and are adapting — to the current turbulent times, there is a more fundamental question to consider. That is, will the financial and monetary turbulence of the past decade continue, or will the 1980s bring a return to lower and more stable inflation and interest rates, and faster economic progress?     

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.     

Relationship Banking: What Do We Know?

This paper briefly reviews the contemporary literature on relationship banking. We start out with a discussion of the raison d'être of banks in the context of the financial intermediation literature. From there we discuss how relationship banking fits into the core economic services provided by banks and point at its costs and benefits. This leads to an examination of the interrelationship between the competitive environment and relationship banking as well as a discussion of the empirical evidence. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G20, G21, L10.     

Efficiency and productivity growth in the banking industry of Central and Eastern Europe

We employ the directional technology distance function and provide estimates of bank efficiency and productivity change across Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and across banks with different ownership status for the period 1998–2003. Our results demonstrate the strong links of competition and concentration with bank efficiency. They also show that productivity for the whole region initially declined but has improved more recently with further progress on institutional and structural reforms. Input-biased technical change has been consistently positive throughout the entire period suggesting that the reforms have induced favorable changes in relative input prices and input mix. However we find evidence of diverging trends in productivity growth patterns across banking industries and that foreign banks outperform domestic private and state-owned banks both in terms of efficiency and productivity gains. Overall, we find that productivity change in CEE is driven by technological change rather than efficiency change.     

Bank Consolidation and Small Business Lending: The Role of Community Banks

This paper examines how bank consolidation activity affected small business lending in local U.S. banking markets during two 3-year study periods, focussing on the role played by community banks in the process. During the 1994–1997 period, we find that consolidation activity involving big banks is associated with lower loan growth, whereas community bank consolidations and a greater presence of community banks in the market are associated with higher loan growth. During the 1997–2000 period, consolidation activity is either unrelated to small business loan growth or is associated with higher loan growth. In both study periods we find that, net of organization reclassifications due to consolidation or asset growth, the share of small business lending funded by community banks rose, particularly in markets undergoing consolidation.