Assessing Financial Performance of Malaysian Islamic and Conventional Commercial Banks Using Financial Ratios

A rapid growth of Islamic banking has led the Malaysian economy to gaining greater prosperity than before. Presently, there are more than 20 Islamic banks operating in Malaysia. Financial ratios calculated from the categories of liquidity, profitability, risk and solvency, and efficiency of banks can be used to gauge the overall financial performance of the banking industry. The objective is to assess the overall performance of Islamic banks as well as conventional banks in Malaysia using financial ratios. The findings indicated that conventional commercial banks in Malaysia do have better quality assets, are more liquid, and are more profitable than Islamic banks. Total expenses in conventional banks are much higher, which may affect profitability and the significant amount of non-performing loans （NPLs）, thus increasing solvency risk. The findings show positive insights of Islamic banks, whose confidence and trust are rising, over a short period with strong improvements in asset utilization, effective management, and expenditure control. This comparative study clearly identified that conventional banks are better financial performers compared to Islamic banks in Malaysia during the period of 2006-2010.     

Unlocking the transformative potential of branchless banking in Indonesia

Branchless banking has the potential to significantly enhance financial inclusion among Indonesia’s large and geographically disparate unbanked population and to connect Indonesia’s micro, small and medium enterprises to the global economy. Why has the branchless-banking revolution not yet materialised? Constrained by regulation, deployments have failed to attract a critical mass of users. Indonesia’s fragmented telecommunications sector has made it difficult for providers to emulate the success stories in other countries, in which dominant providers are competing for the market with a proprietary platform. In Indonesia, it is likely that a considerable degree of interoperability will be required for providers to unleash network effects and attract users. Indonesia’s providers are experimenting in this space. Recognising branchless banking’s potential to accelerate financial inclusion, Bank Indonesia appears committed to improving the regulatory framework. This article identifies the components of an enabling regulatory environment. Success in Indonesia would provide a model for a more widespread uptake of transformative branchless banking.     

The Nurturing of Relationships in Commercial and Retail Banking

ABSTRACT

The objective of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the factors associated with nurturing relationships between relationship managers and their clients in the banking industry. The Nominal Group Technique and a content analytical approach were both used to respectively collect and interpret the data. Results found the nurturing of relationships to be endogenous and asymmetrical in nature. The consequence is a personal, individualistic process maintained on behalf of the bank. The complexity associated with managing commercial portfolios requires commercial account managers to be more involved with their clients in the nurturing process than retail branch managers.     

‘Parasitic invasions’ or sources of good governance: Constraining foreign competition in Hong Kong banking, 1965–81

This paper investigates the operation and impact of the moratorium on new banking licences imposed in Hong Kong in 1965 and the claims that foreign banks destabilised the banking system and drained resources from the colony. First it examines foreign banks' attempts to circumvent the moratorium through claims of special circumstances and buying interests in local banks, and secondly it examines the efforts of incumbents to extend barriers to non-bank financial institutions and to branches of foreign banks. The general conclusions are that while the moratorium was aimed at increasing the stability of the banking system, it had the effect of decreasing the regulatory breadth of the government, and reducing incentives for mergers and acquisitions that might have improved governance.     

我国银行业结构与经济增长的实证研究

自1994年以来,我国的经济金融体制不断深化改革,银行业整体规模迅速扩张,并逐渐形成多层次、多元化的银行业体系。为了考察我国银行业结构对我国经济增长的影响,本文根据我国的地理和经济特征,将我国划分为了六个区域,并运用六个区域在1995至2010年间的面板数据,以中小金融机构的市场份额(即除四大国有银行外的其他金融机构的贷款余额占各区域全部金融机构贷款余额的比例)为度量指标,采用固定效应模型和广义矩估计法(GMM),分析了不同规模银行在整个银行体系中的相对重要性。通过研究发现,我国中小银行的市场份额与经济增长之间具有显著的正向关系,在现阶段的中国,提高中小银行的市场份额能够有效促进实体经济的发展,并提出了相关的政策建议。     

Testing for profitability and contestability in banking: evidence from Austria

The paper investigates the determinants of banking profitability and banking market conditions in Austria. We conduct a panel econometric analysis which allows for testing the hypotheses which have become the most prominent in the literature on bank profitability: the structure–conduct–performance hypothesis, the efficient‐structure hypothesis and the relative market‐power hypothesis. Further, we test whether Austrian banking markets are, on average, contestable. A newly compiled dataset covering more than 700 Austrian banks ranging over the period from 1995 to 2002 is used to carry out these econometric analyses. The empirical findings support the view that the Austrian banks do exert, on average, some local market power. However, the gains in terms of excess profits are rather minor as a result of low deterrence powers of the incumbent banks.     

Competition and Concentration in the New European Banking Landscape

This paper measures the degree of concentration and competition in the enlarged European Union (EU) banking environment over the period 1998–2002. In the empirical part we opt for a methodology as proposed by Panzar and Rosse based on a non‐structural estimation of market competition. Our results suggest that European banks were operating under conditions of monopolistic competition and that bank interest revenues in the 10 new EU member states was earned under conditions of higher competition than those that existed in the old EU banking countries. The opposite result was observed for total operating revenues. Smaller banks earn interest income in a less competitive environment than larger banks, while the opposite is observed for total revenues.     

Convergence of interest rate pass-through in a wider euro zone?

This study investigates interest rate pass-through convergence for the eight Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) that joined the European Union. Based on a unifying empirical pass-through model that allows for thresholds, asymmetric adjustment, and structural changes, we find that the pass-through in many CEECs has become faster over time and is generally more complete than in the euro zone. We find evidence for convergence across CEECs with market concentration, bank health, foreign bank participation and monetary policy regime as conditioning factors. No convergence of the CEEC pass-through is found vis-à-vis the heterogeneous euro zone.     

现代金融的核心功能是配置风险

金融经历了从融通资金到信用创造，再到转移风险的过程。现代金融的核心功能是配置风险。金融不能消灭风险，它只能是转移风险，分散风险。金融的发展趋势是提升金融体系配置风险的功能，使风险流量化。