Issue #3 (Volume 12 2017)

This paper examines performance outcomes of capitalization in the European bank market. Using a European sample with 2,504 firm-year observations for the years 1992–2012, the authors analyze the effect of capitalization as used by the financial regulators on bank risk and bank profitability with alternative accounting- and market-based measures. All accounting-based measures consistently show that higher capitalization reduces bank risk and is associated with increased profitability. Contrary to this, market-based risk measures show higher bank risk implying possibly different risk assessment by capital market participants. Our results are corroborated by an ex post analysis of bank performance in times of crisis. Higher capitalized banks have fared better after the crisis in respect of profitability and risk.

The banking sector plays a vital role in growth-supporting factor for economic growth in the world’s fastest-growing economies like India. Recently, Islamic banking has become an increasingly popular method for alleviating poverty, financial inclusion and economic development around the world. Its importance is highly needed in developing and emerging countries such as India. The main purpose of the paper is to identify and prioritize the critical impeding factors for Islamic banking growth in India. The study is conducted in two stages: the first stage involves investigating the current literature works regarding the challenges facing Islamic banking industry in India, while the second stage is based on identifying and prioritizing these challenges according to its importance in hindering Islamic banking growth by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP is a multi-criterion decision making tool for organizing and analyzing decisions, based on qualitative and quantitative measures. The results show that the regulatory environmental challenge is the most significant factor among other factors in impeding the growth of Islamic banking in India followed by lack of Islamic banking experts and scholars. The third main challenge is lack of awareness for Islamic banking instruments followed by lack of standardization and the last is lack of cooperation and coordination between Islamic banking authorities. This study is considered the first one to address empirically the challenges facing Islamic banking industry in the world and particularly in India.

Indonesia is a country with the largest Muslim population in the world. However, since the Islamic banks were being established in Indonesia for about 20 years, their market share only accounts for about 5% in the Indonesian banking system. Muslim participations in using Islamic bank are relatively low. This study expands the Theory of Planned Behavior by adding the variables of religiosity and self-efficacy. Previous studies have not examined this new expanded model to analyze customers who participated in using the saving Islamic bank’s products and services. Based on 220 Islamic bank consumers who participated in the study, the study indicated that questionnaires about religiosity and self-efficacy had good external validity and could be adapted for the Indonesian culture context. The most interesting finding was that the religiosity variable strongly enhanced the use of Islamic banks. Similarly, this study found that the self-efficacy variable improved an intention of customers to participate in the Islamic banking system. This paper also discusses the implications of the findings and recommendations for future studies.

The current study intends to empirically test a relationship between long-memory features in returns and volatility of Dhaka Stock Exchange market. As such, the study uses the ARFIMA-FIGARCH and FIPARCH structure for the daily data ranging from 15 December 2003 to July 31, 2013 of Dhaka Stock Exchange market index, i.e., DSE General Index (DGEN). The observed indication assembled from long-memory tests supports the occurrence of long memory in Bangladesh stock returns. The study aims at doing research work with long-memory data set, as it provides a superior strategy, as well as gives real picture with short-memory data set. Moreover, the backup indication for existence of long memory in both return and volatility denies the efficient market hypothesis of Fama (1970) that the future return and volatility values are unpredictable. Extra measures ought to be given for the smooth functioning of the Dhaka Stock Exchange market so that both individual and institutional investors can get congenial atmosphere to invest. Authors’ suggested that Bangladesh Bank must play vital role as share market of Bangladesh is dominated by banking shares and in case of other listed shares of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, market authority should deal with transparently and fairly so that the market can be transformed into strong efficient market. This requires suitable directives, groundwork, removing malpractices and also implementation of investors’ friendly decisions. Further, fiscal policy of the country should be pro investor friendly, as well as monetary policy should work as complementary towards investment at stock exchange market as suggested by the authors.

The objective of the study is to investigate the moderating role of affective sentiments of brand psychological ownership of an employee in the relationship among the cognitive sentiments of employee brand understanding and employee brand equity of conventional and Islamic banks. Survey method was adopted to collect data from respondents from conventional and Islamic banks. Data were collected from 279 employees from the banking sector using two-stage probability sampling. Disproportionate stratified random sampling and simple random sampling were employed to collect responses. To analyze the data, multi-group analysis was applied using PLS-SEM technique through SmartPLS 3.0. Results demonstrated that congruence between brand image and individuals has a moderating effect on the relationship between brand confidence and employee brand equity in conventional banking. Responsibility to maintain brand image has a moderating effect on the relationship between brand knowledge and employee brand equity in conventional banking. In case of Islamic banking, only congruence between brand image and individuals exhibited a moderating role on the relationship between brand knowledge and employee brand equity. The importance of brand understanding of employees and psychological ownership of a brand has been widely discussed in branding literature. However, only a few studies investigated the relationship between dimensions of employee brand understanding and the employee brand psychological ownership with employee brand equity. The cognitive and affective sentiments of both exogenous latent constructs, their relationships, and the interaction effect of cognitive and affective sentiments were seldom discussed in branding literature. This study covers the in-depth view and investigation of brand understanding of employ¬ees and the affective and cognitive sentiments of brand psychological ownership with em¬ployee behavior toward a brand. This study also uncovers the moderating role of affective sentiments of brand psychological ownership on the relationship between cognitive senti¬ments of employee brand understanding and employee brand equity. This study will help researchers analyze the in-depth role of affective and cognitive sentiments on brand sup¬portive related behavior of employees.

Despite the widespread use of benchmarking as an effective tool for improving the efficiency of the bank’s functioning, its implementation does not take into account the relation between comparable performance indicators, the choice of benchmark for comparison, deviations of indicators from target values with stages of the bank’s life cycle, which cause differences in the intensity and characteristics of development of financial institutions. The procedure for identifying a reference bank for comparison is also insufficiently specified, which is important in terms of adapting its experience by the recipient bank due to the possible fundamental differences in their functioning. Therefore, the article has modified the technology of benchmarking of the bank’s performance based on the life cycle concept and the DEA approach.
The research is based on the use of the DEA method to determine the most efficient bank as a reference bank in benchmarking comparison; canonical analysis – for the formation of a list of indicators of bank performance; cluster analysis – to substantiate the levels of deviations of the actual values of comparable indicators from the target ones.
The study envisages, firstly, the selection of indicators for benchmarking comparisons based on the identification of causal relationships between the indicators of subsystems “Finance”, “Customers”, “Business processes”, “Personnel development” that arise at each stage of a bank’s life cycle; secondly, the choice of a benchmark bank for comparison according to the maximum value of the performance indicator calculated through the DEA method for a set of banks that are at one and the same stage of their life cycle; thirdly, definition of the range of deviations (low, permissible, critical) of the actual values of comparable indicators of the effectiveness of management of finance, customer base, business processes and personnel of the bank from the target ones. A practical testing of the benchmarking technology was carried out on the example of Ukrainian banks, whose stage in 2016 was identified as “intense growth”.

Although considerable research has focused on the determinants of credit to the private sector, the issue still remains controversial, particularly with respect to the role of foreign banks in emerging markets. This study sought to understand the factors that affect lending of commercial bank loans both in form of foreign and local loans. It used panel data methods on quarterly bank-specific data covering the period from 2000 to 2013. In general, the results reveal that the ownership structure, housing variable and the size of the bank are the main determinants of aggregate commercial bank lending. This conclusion is maintained even when the determinants of foreign loans and local loans are specifically examined separately. However, the role of the liquidity measure is in not consistent in the different specifications while the role of interest rates is largely in line with expectation in most of the specifications. Implicitly, the results seem to suggest a need for mergers of small banks, policy focus on incentives for more local bank ownership and continued efforts on minimization of interest rate spread, which not only promote mortgage financing and home ownership, but also overall credit growth.

This paper theoretically discusses and reviews the main causes of the crisis, including discrimination, moral failure, poor governance, easy credit, imprudent lending, excessive debt and leverage, and regulation and supervision failure. The implications of the crisis have been reviewed, followed by a critical discussion on the lack of direct exposure to the crisis for Islamic banking, because most, if not all, of the practices and financial instruments that are believed to be responsible for the crisis are not permitted under Islamic banking principles.

This paper sought to analyze data and interpret statistical results in testing the performance of an interest rate commission agent banking system. Primary and secondary data were collected from banking industry in Ethiopia to test the research hypotheses, credit risk and liquidity crunch have no impact on AIRCABS, investor loan funding has a positive impact on profitability and sustainability of AIRCABS and discrete market deposit interest rate incentive has a positive impact on stable deposit mobilization in a bank. To test the hypothesis, statistical tools such as Cronbach’s alpha, Kuder-Richardson (KR-20), canonical correlation and multinomial logistic regression were used. The result showed that credit risk and liquidity crunch have no effect on an interest rate commission agent banking system, investor loan funding has a significant strong relationship with profitability and sustainability of AIRCABS and discrete market deposit interest rate incentive has also a significant strong relationship with stable deposit mobilization. This led to a conclusion that an interest rate commission agent banking system (AIRCABS) model is viable and reliable.

This research analyzes the determinants of liquidity risk in Islamic banks by using a comprehensive model that incorporates several variables that impact the liquidity of Islamic banks. A panel data analysis is conducted on a sample of 42 Islamic banks from 15 countries between 2007 and 2014. The results show a negative correlation between liquidity risk and cash ratio, as the cash balance can be used to meet any demands for liquidity from the bank’s customers. There is negative correlation between liquidity risk and securities held by the bank, since banks which need liquidity can sell these assets to meet any liquidity shortages they face. Bank size also has a negative relationship with liquidity risk, as larger banks tend to have more stability and customers feel safer dealing with large banks. Bank’s equity also has a negative correlation with liquidity risk, as equity is a more stable source of funding for banks, a higher ratio of equity lowers liquidity risk. On the other hand, there is a positive relationship with high profit assets, as banks shift their portfolio towards more profitable assets in order to increase their earnings, they face greater liquidity risk, a positive relationship also exists with bad finance provision. Additionally, the findings demonstrate that the relationship between bank size and liquidity risk is not linear.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues and challenges of liquidity risk management in Islamic banks. At the same time, the authors are going to identify the sources of liquidity risk in Islamic banks and the common instruments used to mitigate liquidity mismatches in both sides of their balance sheets. The study is a qualitative study that uses secondary sources of data to describe and analyze risk mitigation in the Islamic banking context. Data were collected from libraries by referring to books, journals from both online and offline sources. The research objectives were addressed by critically analysing various issues from both the Islamic principles and contemporary applications. The authors found that Islamic liquidity management is an important building block for stable and efficient banking. Even though there are several attempts, for example, i) organized tawarruq (commodity murabahah), ii) salam sukuk and iii) short-term ijarah sukuk, to find solutions to the incessant problems of liquidity faced by majority of Islamic banks, there are still several underlying problems such as i) in terms of deficiency in infrastructure especially in countries where Islamic finance is still at an early stage, ii) lack of hedging instruments and iii) Shariah restrictions on some instruments. Regulatory bodies should come up with more innovative practices of Islamic liquidity management to solve unresolved theoretical issues and also meeting market requirements for liquidity.

While service failure is inevitable in the banking sector, the manner in which service recovery efforts are expedited poses vital implications for organizations vested in profitable relationships with their clients. In this vein, this study investigates the significance of post-transgression forgiveness in defining the resultant satisfaction levels of customers. A structured questionnaire was self-administered among 371 premium banking customers. The findings point to the salience of selected service recovery efforts towards the forgiveness inclinations and ultimate satisfaction levels of banking customers. In particular, both bank reciprocity norms (ß=0.459; p<0.000) and extra-role behavior (ß=0.348; p<0.000) positively influence post-transgression forgiveness by customers. On the other hand, extra-role behavior (ß=0.407; p<0.000) and forgiveness (ß=0.373; p<0.000) positively influence bank service satisfaction. Nevertheless, bank reciprocity was found to have a positive influence on extra-role behavior (ß=0.548; p<0.000) in this study. The findings suggest the need for the development of a prescribed set of guidelines and bank procedures to support personalized service recovery efforts in the wake of service failures.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of profitability of fifteen selected private commercial banks in Bangladesh over the period 2005‒2015. The study emphasizes on the internal factors that affect bank profitability. This research uses panel data to explore the impact of nonperforming loan, cost to income ratio, loan to deposit ratio, commission fees, cost of fund and operating expenses on the profitability indicators of banks like return on asset and return on equity. The experimental outcomes have found strong evidence that nonperforming loan (NPL) and operating expenses have a significant effect on the profitability. Moreover, the results have shown that higher NPL may lead to less profit due to provision of classified loans. Again, higher loan to deposit (LD) ratio and cost of fund contribute towards profitability, but their impacts are not significant in the private commercial banks of Bangladesh.

In this paper, the authors examined the efficiency of deposit money banks (DMBs) in Nigeria in three years after, during and before the 2004–2005 capital consolidation in Nigeria. This consolidation period was the last period the Central Bank of Nigeria implemented an official recapitalization policy of the deposit money banks in the country. The authors predicated the study on a modified intermediation and efficiency measurement frameworks. It utilizes deposits, fixed assets and employees as inputs, whose costs are interest payments, depreciation and staff expenses. Performing loans and advances, investments and liquid assets constituted the output variables. The authors computed the efficiency scores, using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. The data used were obtained from the DMBs that retained their identities and controlled over 75% of the banking industry’s total assets. They were purposively selected to maintain data consistency, and were size-classified by total assets. The findings show that small banks tend to be more cost efficient than medium and big banks. More so, medium sized banks tend to be more cost efficient than big banks, while big banks take the lead in cost efficiency score in post consolidation period. Cost efficiency of the banks was the highest during consolidation, followed by pre-consolidation and least in three years after consolidation.

Financial sector development is an influential force that outlines the financing and governance of firms in emerging economies. Suppliers and bankers represent alternative governance structures to a firm because of their trade credit and loan requirements, respectively. The continuous monitoring of investment by banks and suppliers impacts on corporate disclosure and practices. The study compares a sample of Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) firms listed on the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) index which measures corporate governance and those not listed on the index. A Generalized Least Squares (GLS) random effect regression of banking sector development and trade credit of firms listed on the JSE SRI and non-SRI listed firms was done to ascertain whether trade credit gives firms a preferred governance system and structure. The findings affirm that good corporate governance practices improve access to bank loans for working capital financing and good governance practices do not consequently result in more bank loan as a preferred governance structure for working capital financing compared to use of trade credit.

The attraction of deposits by the banks in Ukraine is the basis for the formation of their resource base, which is an essential component of the banking financial potential. A qualitative formation of the bank’s resource base is carried out through proper management of attracting deposits in terms of their selection and giving preferences to specific sources of resource allocation. That is why the determination of priorities in attracting resources by banks and the formation of appropriate tools is an important tactical task in ensuring the stability of the Ukrainian banking system. The problem of new approaches to the management of deposits was especially acute during the crisis and the reduction of confidence of the population of Ukraine in the banking system, which makes actual the topic of the article and determines the importance of solving the tasks set in it. The goal of the paper is to develop tools for determining priorities of the main sources of attracting deposits by banks taking into account the system of criteria as a prerequisite for optimizing deposit portfolios of banks and the basis for the formation of their financial potential. The article proposes a sequence of stages and the corresponding tools that ensure the determination of priorities of different sources for attracting deposit funds of banks taking into account the criteria of time, minimization of costs and risks, balanced state of terms and volumes, equilibrium of costs and risks, ensuring a qualitative formation and effective use of the financial potential of the bank, ensuring a certain level of development of the bank. The use of the proposed approach made it possible to obtain such estimates that reflect priorities according to the criteria of minimization and equilibrium of risks and costs, a balanced state of terms and volumes and ensuring a specified level of the bank’s development, making it possible to determine the priorities of the main sources of attraction of financial resources for five banks in Ukraine.

The paper presents factors why people are reluctant to bank money in rural Southern African countries. Six countries namely Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe were used in the study. A focus group of 10 people from each of the stated Southern African countries was composed and used to obtain perceptions, views, reactions, attitudes, experiences among others on why people are reluctant to bank their money. People are unwilling to bank their money in rural Southern Africa and the reasons behind this seem to be many. If no correctional measures are put in place, rural Southern Africa will continue to be unbanked for the next five decades.

This paper strives to recognize the possible performance differences between the two popular banking forms in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Applying different methodologies on the data that span the period 2003–2015, this study docu¬ments significant differences with respect to the period, countries, and performance measures. Specifically, conventional banks in GCC countries outperform their Islamic counterparts in profitability. Also, bank specific factors such as liquidity, capital ad¬equacy, bank size and growth all affect the profitability. In addition, GCC conventional and Islamic banks were isolated from the 2008 subprime crisis even though their prof¬itability seems to be decayed differently over the period of the economic downturn.

This study examines the degree of the corporate risk disclosure and its impact on the banking performance using annual data of banks listed on the UAE financial markets: Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange (ADX) and Dubai Financial Market (DFM) during the period 2003–2013. The authors conduct the content analysis of the annual reports to measure the degree of the corporate risk disclosure. In addition, they use the panel data regressions to analyze the impact of the corporate risk disclosure on the performance of the banks. The results show low degree of the overall corporate risk disclosure index, strategic risk disclosure index, operational risk disclosure index, damage risk disclosure index, and risk management disclosure index for UAE listed banks. In addition, the results reveal significant differences in the overall corporate risk disclosure, strategic risk disclosure, financial risk disclosure, and risk management disclosure between conventional and Islamic banks. However, the effect of the degree of the overall corporate risk disclosure on the performance of UAE bank has been found insignificant. The findings of this paper contribute by providing a better understanding of risk disclosure practices in UAE and help the banks to optimally disclose their risk, improve the quality of their disclosure practices and enhance the quality of their financial reports. The impact of the corporate risk disclosure on the performance of the banks has not been examined by any of the prior researches. In addition, this paper examines the potential difference between Islamic and conventional banks in their corporate risk disclosure practices.

The article deals with topical issues to develop the banking sector in Kazakhstan as their condition assessment, weaknesses, strengths, problems and basic ways of development of Kazakhstan’s second-tier banks in the current environment, these issues are discussed in this article and determine the relevance of the material presented. The need to address the main problems in the development of the banking sector is due to the fact that it is represented as a fundamental element of the financial system. Moreover, under the modern conditions, it is subject to the impact of financial globalization, crisis phenomena in the world economy, the growth of uncertainty in the world financial market, which determines a number of negative consequences for the stable development of banking activities. Effective functioning of the banking system allows ensuring the sustainable economic development of any state, as the banking sector participates in the redistribution of funds and financing of the real sector of the country’s economy. At the present stage of the development, the issues of dealing with the key problems of the development of the banking sector acquire special relevance on a global scale, since the financial crisis has revealed the shortcomings of the current system of banking regulation and supervision. In this regard, in the crisis conditions, the state intervention in regulation of banking activities has intensified, the role of risk management in commercial banks has increased, the requirements to the bank’s capital, and the quality of assets has increased. Volatility and instability of the world financial markets require the search for new approaches in the implementation of banking activities to maintain sustainable development, increase margins in the banking business, which determines the relevance of this study. The main results of the research show the influence of external and internal factors that inhibit the development of banking activity.

One of the important tasks of the National Bank of Ukraine is to implement the Directive 2014/59/EU namely to introduce the “bail-in” mechanism, which will enable to resolve insolvency of banks or high probability of its occurrence at the expense of internal sources of banks in order to improve the Ukrainian banking system functioning and adapt it to the requirements and standards of the European Union. The foreign experience of the “bail-in” implementation shows that central banks succeeded in restructuring the balance sheets of banks and significantly reduced the risks of their activities. Thus, the purpose of the study is to substantiate the expediency of the “bail-in” mechanism introduction in banking system of Ukraine. The essence of the “bail-in” mechanism is the involvement of shareholders and lenders of the bank in order to restore its solvency by offsetting shareholders’ equity, subordinated debt, and/or converting/writing off other long-term unsecured and unprovided liabilities in a subordinated debt or shares of the bank. In the process of scientific research, using the comparative method, the method of analogies and methods of logical generalization and scientific abstraction, the structure of the “bail-in” mechanism is determined, which consists of methods (conversion of liabilities into capital, liabilities write-off, capital write-off), provision (normative and legal, financial, organizational and institutional, technical and technological, informational) and levers (incentives, sanctions). Using the expert estimation method, it is proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of the “bail-in” mechanism by comparing the quality of the assets of the bank prior to its implementation and after the completion of the action. The results of the study show that, firstly, the implementation of the “bail-in” mechanism in Ukraine will enable the National Bank of Ukraine to interfere with the activities of banks at an early stage of the problems and to take all necessary measures to restore their solvency. Secondly, the “bail-in” mechanism implementation in Ukraine will increase banks’ resilience to shock, crisis and contribute to long-term financial stability.

The purpose of this article is two-fold: to investigate how recurring maintenance fees levied on students’ accounts impact on university students’ willingness to maintain bank accounts and therefore begin creating the necessary credit profiles. Credit profiles provide financial history that is useful for banks and other lenders to evaluate clients’ credit worthiness. Many students in South African universities are ignorant of this requirement and usually make choices detrimental to their accessing current and future financial products. The banks’ service quality and students’ expectations need to be harmonized at some point.
The study was exploratory in nature, using expressive statements on banking costs to expose common causes of financial burden, the best and worst case scenarios of utilizing banking products including benefit accrual from their use. Pre-intervention data was collected using questionnaires N=60 conveniently sampled financial management students. The post-intervention data was collected from the same students N=55 using similar questionnaires where five students did not show up. The study also assessed financial management tutorial influence on students’ decision making after being exposed to banking market demands and their costs. SPSS was used to analyze data collected.
Cheaper once-off cardless services were found to be popular with students receiving money, citing its reasonableness and depositor charger rather than recipient shoul¬dering transaction costs. Students confirmed their satisfaction with saving costly re¬curring bank account maintenance fees, earning 0% interest on credit balances. Bank account holders increased in post-intervention compared to pre-tutorial with better understanding of client’s profile value for accessing credit. Other students remained reluctant to maintain bank accounts despite future economic benefits. Bank account maintenance fees discourage students from maintaining bank accounts. Maintenance fees may aid banks user cost recovery but losing clients to competing cheap cardless products may be more costly.
The study contributes to relationship management in banking sector. Research debate focused on bank selection criteria based on established key quality factors and service. Little scholarly investigation exists on reasons for annulling bank accounts, replaced with once-off cardless services that is gaining popularity with university students over maintaining bank accounts. Highlighting what is critical to students, the paper may influence banks policies and developers to design innovative products suitable for university students market. Affordability and incentives are key attraction points for clients, mainly university students operating with limited resources. Loyalty prospects can surpass immediate recovery derived from maintenance fees.

Moral hazard is a typical problem of modern economic system, if we consider its a central role in the events leading up to the (financial) crisis of 2008. Therefore, there is a need to better appreciate its nature and its role, if future reforms are to be well designed in order to prevent further crises, default, bankrupt, down the line. Along this perspective, the paper discusses a moral hazard perspective on recent financial crisis, from Enron bankruptcy, to Lehman case, through AIG, Bearn Stern, Citigroup bail out, commenting, eventually, selected rules contained in the Sarbanes Oxley Act issued by the U.S. Government in 2002. The paper, next, comments on recent crisis of four Italian banks and on the bail in recently introduced for European banks. Eventually, the paper focuses on the so-called “free-rider” problem, discussing pro and cons of selected financial instruments (e.g. credit derivatives), while offering from a technical standpoint with the help of an analytical approach.