Exploring the effect of market risks on bank profitability: Evidence from Jordan

Financial performance is the fundamental aspect to test the performance of the companies. The performance of insurance sector, like any other service industry, is supposed to depend significantly on customers. When it comes to customers, it is an established fact that customer satisfaction would be an important element. Customer satisfaction primarily depends on the quality of service it gets. It can be safely hypothesized that better service quality would lead to higher satisfaction, which would ultimately lead to higher profits for the company. Studies on this relationship in the insurance sector for Saudi Arabia are missing. Hence, this study aims at studying both the profitability of companies and quality of service and tries to relate it to customer satisfaction. The results are quite surprising, as the study establishes that although the qualities of services are found wanting in many areas, companies are earning good profits. A probable reason could be the statutory nature of the services. Nevertheless, this study recommends improving the quality of services and differentiating services between age groups for further improvement.

Working capital management plays a pivotal role in enhancing the operational efficiency of firms and their ultimate profitability. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the trends in working capital management and its impact on the financial performance of listed manufacturing firms on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE). A panel data methodology was used with different regression estimators to analyze this relationship based on an unbalanced panel of 69 manufacturing firms listed during the period 2007–2016.
The findings revealed that the average collection period and the average payment period are negative and statistically significant for profitability, implying that firms which efficiently manage their accounts receivable and those that pay their creditors on time perform better than those that do not. Additionally, a positive statistically significant relationship between the number of days in inventory and profitability was supported suggesting that firms which stock-up and maintain their inventory levels suffer less from stock-outs and avoid challenges of securing financing when needed. This increases their operational efficiency and ensures profitability in the long run. It could not be ascertained whether a shorter or longer cash conversion cycle enhances firm profitability, since findings to support this premise were weak. However, it was observed that manufacturing firms are on average, carrying lot of debt in their capital structures.
The present study contributes to existing literature by presenting one of the very recent findings on this topic while simultaneously testing the validity of recent local and international methodologies, in order to inform policy change.

In the article, the essence of the concept of a banking institution “capitalization” is revealed. The current state of capitalization level of domestic banks is investigated. The directions of strengthening the capitalization are offered, which will increase the com¬petitiveness of domestic banking institutions in the world financial market and will ensure the national economy stability on the way toward integration into the world economy.
It is proved that the prospects for the development of any bank are largely determined by its capitalization level. Lack of proper development inhibits both individual banks and the banking sector as a whole.
In the context of the recent financial crisis, the provision of sufficient capital for banks has been one of the key issues, because the lack of capital was the greatest threat to the banking system stability. With this in mind, the issue of the banking system capitaliza¬tion is particularly topical.
Today, the development of the Ukrainian banking system under economic instability has faced the increase in competitiveness of domestic banks compared with foreign ones, in order to preserve the national priorities of the banking system in general under conditions of foreign capital movement.
The processes of concentration in the banking system of Ukraine are analyzed using Herfindahl-Hirschman index in terms of assets and equity, allowing to estimate the level of monopolization and, therefore, the impact on economic development. To con¬sider the increase in the level of capitalization and reliability of the banking institutions of Ukraine, it would be advisable, first of all, for banks to improve the quality of capital and to ensure a sufficient level of coverage of risks taken by banks.