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This study examines whether risk asset exposure affects the financial performance of commercial banks in Cameroon, a bank-dominated economy of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). Risk asset exposure is measured by lending intensity (the loan-to-deposit ratio) and credit expansion (annual loan growth), and performance by return on assets (ROA). The data form a balanced panel of ten commercial banks over 2014–2024, compiled from the prudential reporting system of the Central African Banking Commission (COBAC) as published by Cameroon's National Economic and Financial Committee. Bank fixed-effects regressions with bank-clustered standard errors are complemented by a wild-cluster bootstrap suited to few clusters, Driscoll–Kraay standard errors, lagged regressors, panel Granger non-causality tests and a within–between (Mundlak) decomposition that separates changes in a bank's own exposure from persistent differences between banks. The main findings are that (i) neither lending intensity nor credit expansion is significantly associated with profitability in any specification (bootstrap p = 0.81 and 0.30), and the confidence intervals exclude effects larger than about one percentage point of ROA; (ii) lending intensity is unrelated to profitability both within banks over time and between banks (between-effect bootstrap p = 0.88); and (iii) the COVID-19 years of 2020–2021 were associated with ROA about 0.70 percentage points lower (bootstrap p = 0.009). The results indicate a limited role for lending exposure, while significant bank fixed effects and the COVID-19 coefficient point to persistent bank heterogeneity and common systemic shocks. Because the sample comprises ten banks under a single regulator, the findings should be interpreted with caution.

This study examined the effect of deposit diversification on the financial performance of Deposit-Taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (DT-SACCOs) in Kenya and evaluated the moderating effect of corporate governance on this relationship.  The study adopted a positivist research philosophy and a causal research design. The target population comprised 176 SASRA-licensed DT-SACCOs in Kenya, from which 122 SACCOs with complete financial records for the period 2015–2024 were selected using simple random sampling. Panel data techniques, including fixed-effects and random-effects regression models, were employed to estimate the direct and moderating effects, while hierarchical regression was used to test the moderation hypothesis. The findings revealed that non-withdrawable deposits significantly and positively influenced both surplus and dividend payout after introducing lags, whereas withdrawable deposits had no significant effect on financial performance. The results further established that corporate governance had a positive and significant direct effect on financial performance and significantly strengthened the relationship between deposit diversification and financial performance. The findings provide practical guidance for DT-SACCO managers and policymakers to strengthen stable deposit mobilization and corporate governance as mechanisms for enhancing financial sustainability and institutional performance.

This paper examines how uninsured deposits influence credit union funding and whether private excess deposit insurance alters the stability, pricing, and lending capacity of uninsured deposits — deposits that exceed the federal deposit insurance limit. Using U.S. credit union Call Report data from 1995–2022, we exploit variation across institution size, insurance regime, and participation in optional private excess deposit insurance.  We distinguish between pre-crisis (1995–2007) and post-crisis (2009–2022) periods surrounding the 2008 expansion of federal insurance limits.  We document pronounced heterogeneity across the size distribution.  For small credit unions, uninsured deposits are limited in scale and are associated with lower loan intensity.  In contrast, uninsured deposits play a central funding role for large credit unions, which account for 94% of industry assets and 97% of uninsured deposits. For these institutions, uninsured deposits support lending and command higher funding costs — effects that are significantly moderated by excess deposit insurance, reducing funding costs by approximately 27 basis points during the pre-crisis period.  Following 2008, excess insurance participation declines among large institutions but increases modestly among small firms.  Overall, excess deposit insurance functions as a partial substitute for federal coverage, stabilizing uninsured funding without increasing delinquency rates — evidence against moral hazard.

This paper focuses on a classic policy trade-off by unraveling the role of financial deregulation in driving financial stability and exploring how the role of regulatory quality can affect this relationship. To this end, this study uses a balanced panel dataset of 73 countries across a period of ten years starting from 2014. The empirical specification utilizes a two-step System GMM approach, accounting for both endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity issues, and persistence in financial stability. Specifically, financial stability is measured by non-performing loans (NPLs), which represent the level of risk exposure of national banking sectors. The findings reveal that financial freedom leads to higher level of financial instability, proving theoretical predictions of the excessive risk-taking behavior of lending institutions encouraged with financial deregulation. Furthermore, the interaction term between financial freedom and regulatory quality is statistically significant, suggesting that financial deregulation can be compensated by the quality of regulatory environment. The role of the GDP per capita variable used for stabilizing the findings is significant as it represents the resilience of more developed economies. The implications of the results are complex. In a more institutional context, this finding suggests that financial stability is not a direct function of financial freedom but is conditional on institutional capability. Hence, high regulatory quality can mitigate the instability caused by financial freedom, thereby enabling a balanced approach.

SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) play a critical role in Senegal's economy. Some SMEs choose to work with only one bank (monobanking), while others engage with multiple banks (multibanking). This study aims to examine both internal and external determinants that influence SMEs' decision to opt for multibanking. Using data collected from 105 SME managers in Senegal, the research employs multinomial logistic regression which shows that internal factors such as the size of the SME, its maturity, and the manager's experience, significantly drive multibanking, while external factors, such as the quality of banking services, negatively influence this decision. Knowledge of these factors could help to improve the bank-SME relationship, resulting in a win-win situation that better meets the needs of SMEs and increases the loyalty of the main bank's customers. This could contribute to better performance for both players.

This study examines the stock performance of large and small European banks included in the STOXX 600 Banks index in response to three major macroeconomic shocks the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Employing daily bank stock returns and an event study framework, the analysis measures immediate market reactions through abnormal returns, while subsequent shifts in equity performance are evaluated using volatility, Sharpe ratios, and beta coefficients. The results suggest that large banks tend to exhibit more pronounced short-term losses during shocks compared to smaller banks. In contrast, small banks generally outperform in the medium term following these events, achieving higher risk-adjusted returns despite elevated volatility. Both segments experience increased market correlation and volatility during periods of disruption, indicating heightened systemic risk. Moreover, the type of shock plays a crucial role, with smaller banks often showing greater resilience to localized and geopolitical shocks.

This study assesses the determinants of bank deposit flows under changing economic conditions by applying the dynamic panel two-step generalized methods of moments technique to annual observations covering 2007 to 2022 of 12 commercial banks in South Africa. The analysis revealed past deposit flow, profitability, bank size, and capital adequacy ratio as constituting a set of bank-specific variables with a positive predictive influence on deposit flows. At the same time, expenditure drives an adverse impact on deposits. These dynamics posit important implications for efficiency in bank expenditure management to sustain the inflow of depositors’ flows. Also, the results show the existence of a positive relationship between the unemployment rate and deposit flow, which is unexpected in practice, as an increase in joblessness in the country implies a decline in the financial capacity of the population to contribute to bank saving portfolios. However, the unexpected interaction between unemployment and deposit flow in this context can be explained by the adaptive principles of market interactions as the relationship between financial variables is unlikely to be the same under different economic conditions. Moreover, the analysis shows a positive effect of the economic condition on deposit flows which implies that an increase in national productivity exerts an impressive on the flow of depositors' funds to the banks based on market expansion and rapid growth momentum. Based on the findings, strategies to ensure the sustenance of a conducive macroeconomic environment should be reinforced by policymakers as the dynamics of bank deposit flows are linked to the direction of the current economic condition.

This study investigates the impact of Credit Risk Management (CRM) on resilience in non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) and explores how Customer Relationship Management (CREM) moderates this relationship. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with data from credit risk managers in the National Capital Region, the study finds that CRM significantly enhances resilience. Moreover, CREM strengthens the impact of credit risk management on resilience, demonstrating a synergistic effect. The findings suggest that NBFIs should integrate CRM and CREM strategies to improve organizational resilience, offering a valuable framework for enhancing stability amidst economic challenges.

This paper investigates the factors that form bank risks in Bangladeshi state-owned banks. As a representation of bank risk, non-performing loans have been considered the dependent variable for this study. The relevant data have been extracted from six state-owned banks in Bangladesh from 2013 to 2022. The final dataset consists of 60 firm-year observations. The ordinary least square (OLS) regression with robust standard errors model is utilized to find the relationship of bank risks with determinants like asset size, efficiency, liquidity, profitability, leverage ratio, capital adequacy ratio, and loan to asset ratio. The findings say that bank size and loan-to-asset ratio have a highly significant positive relationship with bank risk, whereas profitability, capital adequacy ratio, and bank efficiency have a significant negative association with bank risk. On the other hand, leverage and liquidity are negatively and positively correlated with no statistical significance. To check the study's robustness, another proxy of bank risk, loan loss provision has been used and the results are almost similar. State-owned banks operate in every economy with a different mindset than the general commercial banks. Hence, policymakers should take necessary initiatives based on this study to bring down the high bank risks in state-owned banks in Bangladesh.

This article discusses financial stability related notions of risk, the issue of convergence and cross financial sector prudential intervention. It elucidates the Basel framework shortcomings and enunciates the requirement of setting a reinvigorated prudential framework before proceeding to its essentials in terms of engineering. It highlights an early warning approach dealing with the issue of time reaction mismatch of the prudential authority and the priority of setting a long run forwarded guided approach. The objective of this research is to provide a clue into enhancing prudential setting of instruments, the forwarded guided purview of surveillance as well as hedging and the Balanced Score Card. 

Savings and Credit Co-operatives in Kenya are required to adhere to regulations set by the SACCOs Regulation Authority. Among the regulations is the requirement that the management has to present a myriad of reports including; the Capital Adequacy Return report, Liquidity Statement report, Statement of Financial Position and Statement of Deposit Return. The Return on Investments report compares land, building, and financial assets to SACCO's total assets and its core capital. Despite the existence of prudential guidelines, their influence on the financial performance of deposit-taking SACCOs in Kenya remains contentious with some claiming regulatory compliance in the form of SASRA prudential guidelines has a positive influence while others argue that SASRA regulation has insignificant influence on the financial performance of deposit taking SACCOs. This study seeks to determine the effect of loan-loss provisioning on the financial performance of Deposit-taking SACCOs in Kirinyaga County, Kenya. The study adopted a cross-section descriptive research design. The study population was 10 deposit-taking SACCOs in Kirinyaga County over the period 2017-2022 relying on secondary data. Data analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistics. From the inferential results, the study concluded that loan-loss provisioning positively and significantly affected the financial performance of the deposit-taking SACCOs in Kirinyaga County. The study recommended that the deposit-taking SACCOs in Kirinyaga County ought to strive to be capital-adequate as well as manage their loans efficiently. Being capital-adequate ensures that the SACCOs can expand their operations and hence be sustainable, competitive, and finally profitable. Managing its loans through periodic classification of the loans and having room for loan loss provision ensures the sustainability of the SACCOs.

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the world since the end of 2019 and has damaged the world economy, including Indonesia. Banking as a financial institution that provides funding to companies is also affected. Because the pandemic has reduced the company's performance, and this decline in performance has had an impact on banking. The aim of this research is to test whether the Covid-19 pandemic has an impact on the relationship between risk factors and bank performance. Bank performance is measured by profitability which consists of return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), while bank risk in this study consists of credit risk, liquidity risk, capital, operational risk and the Covid-19 pandemic. The population in this research is the Regional Development Banks (BPD) in Indonesia totaling 34 banks with a sample of 30 banks. The observation period was 4 years with quarterly data so that 320 observation data were collected. Hypothesis testing uses panel data regression, and to select the best regression model, the model will be tested using the Chow-test, Hausman-test, and Lagrange Multiplier test. After the model test was carried out, the fixed effect model was selected as the best model. The research results show that credit risk and operational risk have a significant and negative influence on all profitability, both ROA and ROE. Meanwhile, liquidity risk (LDR) has no effect on both types of profitability, while capital has an effect on ROE but has no effect on ROA. Another interesting result is that the Covid-19 pandemic has no impact on the influence of risk on bank performance.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between portfolio diversification, government regulations, and the financial performance of DT SACCOs in Nairobi County, Kenya. It aims to determine the impact of financial asset investment on the financial performance of deposit-taking SACCOs in Nairobi County, Kenya; the impact of loan portfolios on the financial performance of deposit-taking SACCOs in Nairobi County; and the moderating effect of government regulations on the relationship between portfolio diversification and the financial performance of deposit-taking SACCOs in Nairobi County, Kenya. Capital market theory, modern portfolio theory, risk aversion theory, arbitrage portfolio theory, and decision-making theory will serve as the study's foundation. For the period under review, secondary data will be collected from audited annual financial statements included in SASRA reports.

Although community banks hold a small proportion of U.S. banking assets and market share, they perform a crucial function in the U.S. economy by offering vital financial services to businesses and individuals in regions where major banks do not operate. Their diseconomies of scale put them at a competitive disadvantage in relation to large, national commercial banks when coping with digital transformation and regulatory requirements. These challenges mounted after the Great Recession. This research, with the usage of four key financial ratio categories and the implementation of logit regression, looks into how U.S. community banks evolved in the aftermath of the financial crisis, 2009-2017. It divides the entire sample period into two sub-sample periods, 2009-2012 and 2013-2017, and comparing community banks with their larger counterpart and within the community bank sector between the largest and the smallest asset size quartiles of the group. This study, to the best of our knowledge, represents the only known research at the time of publication that compares recovery of banks post the Great Recession based on whether they are community or non-community banks. It finds that community banks tended to recover more slowly in terms of the bottom line, ROE, after the Great Recession than large national banks. Additionally, community banks are more likely to carry even less capital than their national counterparts in the later time period as compared with the earlier time period. In contrast, banks with higher liquidity and greater operating efficiency are more associated with community banks than non-community banks. Also, the empirical findings posit that size matters, to a certain extent. That is, while size does not command an absolute advantage, a certain threshold may be necessary for a bank to stay competitive. This provides a rationale for mergers and acquisitions taking place in the banking sector.

This study aims to examine the association between banks and firms in a loan. Our data set was pooled cross section data from 2014 to 2016, with long-term loans of firms listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange as a unit of analysis. We estimate our regression model using ordinary least square (OLS) estimator. The results revealed that lower-risk banks tend to associate with riskier but well-performing firms. Similarly, lower-capital banks tend to associate with riskier but well-performing firms. These results are quite contrary to previous studies conducted in developed countries. Lower risk banks have relationship with riskier and well-performing firms in condition that the amount of loan is small enough to be considered safe. Meanwhile, lower capital banks in this study, especially in Indonesia, may face the geographical problem which drives cost so high that makes banks charge higher interest to possibly riskier firms. This study makes contribution by providing evidence from a relative fragmented credit market. Future research on this topic is encouraged to look out more detail especially in the causality interpretation.

This paper aims to analyse the effects of financial statement indicators and off-balance sheet items affecting risk measures among Indian banks employing both panel data regression and a non-parametric decision tree approach. We explore the effects of bank size, leverage, exposure to contingent liabilities including off-balance sheet derivatives usage and macroeconomic factors on risk measures for banks. In this paper, it is also aimed to examine the effects of the major financial liberalization policy period in the domestic market in India that started in the mid-1990s and ended around 2004 as well as impacts of the 2008 global financial crisis on the risk measures of banks operating in India.  As risk measures, we present a comparative analysis of liquidity, solvency, and interest rate risk measures of Indian banks across public (government) and private ownership categories. Main findings from our study demonstrate (i) significant impact of capital adequacy and the bank size on all the risk measures, (ii) contingent liabilities (including derivatives usage) at banks is observed to significantly impact the asset management measure of liquidity risk and the solvency risk of banks, (iii) GDP growth is observed to impact the asset management and liability management measure of liquidity risk, (iv) the global financial crisis is found to have a significant impact on the liquidity risk measures and interest rate risk, but a weak effect on solvency risk of Indian banks, (v) bank ownership category (government owned versus private sector banks) is observed to have a significant impact on all the risk measures, and finally (vi) financial liberalization reforms had a highly significant effect on the liquidity risk at banks.

The crux of bank accounting is how to measure and disclose ex ante credit risk, as loan yields and cost of funds are determined by managerial effectiveness and the financial market. This paper examines how the practice of setting up provisions for loan losses by bank managers had changed to preserve regulatory capitals around the 2008 financial crisis. This paper examines the empirical relationship between ex ante credit loss, which is proxied by loan losses provisions, and realized credit loss, which is measured by net charge-off. The empirical relations are examined before, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis to find the patterns of prediction errors of the incurred loss model. This paper obtains evidence that the empirical relation between non-performing assets and provisions for loan losses weakened at the time of a financial crisis. The relations of net charge-offs and allowance for loan losses on provisions for loan losses amplified during a financial crisis by accounting design. After the financial crisis is over, the empirical relation between non-performing assets and provisions for loan losses does not return back to the pre-crisis relation, but to a different, new post-crisis relation. This paper obtains evidence that financially stable banks in terms of the tier 1 capital ratio, return on assets, market-to-book ratio, or dividend payout ratio tend to adjust provisions for loan losses in a larger scale in response to a financial crisis than less stable banks.

This paper describes how behavioral biases influence the resolution of financial covenant violations. Prior literature documents that violation waivers are common; however, there is a lack of discussion on the determinants that lead loan officers to waive covenant violations. We rely on the escalation of commitment bias (or the sunk cost phenomenon) to discuss how loan officers may become attached to a selected course of action and fail to incorporate new information, increasing the likelihood of covenant waivers. We explain the implications of this bias on bank financial reports by detailing how accounting links loan quality to bank financial statements. We further draw on the psychology literature to offer potential solutions to mitigate overcommitment in the context of loan officers. Future research can examine the extent to which loan officers knowingly or unknowingly steer away from rational decision-making. This study has practical implications as users of bank financial reports, including investors, auditors, examiners, and bank managers, learn about processes and challenges on how accounting mechanics link bank loan portfolios to financial statements.

Policymakers and scholars acknowledge the significance of small and medium enterprises in stirring the economic growth and development in developing and developed economies. In spite of the generally fast pace by which access to financial services for small and medium enterprises is being established, significant segments of the small and medium enterprises sector do not yet benefit from the expansion. This study, therefore, investigated the effect of relationship lending on access to financial services by small and medium enterprises in Kenya. The study was based on credit rationing theory and information asymmetry theory. The target population comprised 4,253 small and medium enterprises in Kenya. A sample size of 366 SMEs was used by the study. The study adopted a multistage sampling technique to obtain the SME respondents. Primary data was utilized and was acquired through semi-structured questionnaires. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics utilizing Heckman two-stage regression model. The study findings showed that relationship lending had a positive and significant effect on access to financial services among SMEs in Kenya. The study concluded that relationship lending plays a critical role in access to financial services by SMEs in Kenya. The study recommends that SMEs owners should strive to meet the terms and conditions provided by lending institutions in their various financing practices while management of the lending institutions should adopt financing practices favorable to SMEs to increase their access to financial services.

The banking sector in Sri Lanka has been portrayed by significant changes in the past few decades. It is widely perceived that competition in the Sri Lankan banking sector has improved since the introduction of the financial sector reforms in the 1990s. By applying Panzar-Rosse (PR) approach to test the degree of competitiveness, this paper assesses the validity of this claim in the context of the Sri Lankan banking sector during 1996-2018. The sample covers a broader set of bank-level panel data of the whole commercial banking sector which comprised of 25 licensed commercial banks. The EGLS procedure applied in this study revealed that during the stated period, the Sri Lankan banking sector had been moderately competitive.  Further analysis also disclosed that there is no significant difference between the state-owned banks and private banks regarding their degree of competitiveness, as well as their temporal dynamics. Another striking observation revealed in this analysis is the lower level of competitiveness among foreign banks compared to the competitiveness of local banks. The Competitiveness of the Sri Lankan banking sector however is characterized by non-price competition, as on many occasions the interest rate depends on government policies. Hence, this study provides new insight into the nature of financial sector competitiveness in underdeveloped countries. The outcome of the research implies the necessity of attempts of all banks towards re-aligning their strategies to attract and retain customers. This would be the major challenge that banks face in accomplishing a higher level of competition in the banking industry in the future.