Bank Performance and Noninterest Income: Evidence from Countries in the Asian Region

Noninterest income (NII) is income generated by banks from sources other than interest payments. Studies conducted on the relationship between NII and bank risk for the USA and Europe have found that emphasis on income diversification lowers risk in European banks but exacerbates it in American banks. Current research on Asian banks has not led to a coherent view of the relationship between NII and bank risk. We employ data over 25 years for 24 Asian countries to examine this relationship. Using the GMM estimation approach we estimate equations for two time-periods, 1996–2007 and 2008–2018, to examine the NII-bank risk relationship in the presence of some controlling financial, macroeconomic and policy variables. Our results show that non-interest income worsens bank risk for all 24 countries as well as for sub-groups of countries. We also find that, by and large, economic growth improves bank risk while inflation above a threshold worsens it. Finally, our proxy measure for monetary policy improves bank risk though fiscal policy seems to have no effect.

Does Board Collective Suitability Affect Performance and Risk? Evidence from European Banks

This paper analyzes the features of the boards of large listed European banks and their degree of “collective suitability” as formalized by the Capital Requirements Directives (CRD4) and evaluates whether closer proximity to the collective suitability regulatory paradigm affects banks’ performance, risk and risk-adjusted performance. We leverage Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) to analyze board features and suitability (i.e. competence, diversity, independence and time commitment) jointly as a multifaceted, non-linear combination of all board variables, rather than evaluating the single variables individually as in the mainstream literature. Using a hand-collected dataset based on numerous features of boards of directors, we find that European banks’ boards can be classified in four different board archetypes characterized by different degrees of collective suitability. Our findings also suggest positive relationships between the degree of collective suitability and performance, risk-adjusted performance, and risk, confirming that the regulatory provisions on governance are going in the right direction, enhancing effective and prudent management.

Investigating the relationship between bank performance and accounting standards: evidence from M&As in European banking

PurposeThe study aims to identify whether international financial reporting standards (IFRS) or local generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) reporting provides investors and senior management of acquirer banks with superior information on target banks under post-merger bank performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors examine the claim that IFRS improves corporate transparency and increases financial reporting quality in European Bank merger and acquisitions (M&As). The authors compare the financial performance of merged banks where the target and acquirer banks employed the same reporting system (up to 305 merged banks) to the performance of a control group of banks not engaged in M&A activity (up to 1,690 European banks).FindingsLocal GAAP reporting allows a more transparent assessment of financial performance using traditional indicators, making it a superior tool for assessing potential acquisition targets.Practical implicationsOverall, the empirical findings are consistent with prior studies and indicate a significant relationship between local GAAP and post-merger performance, while IFRS does not contribute to post-merger bank performance.Originality/valueThe study is one of the very few studies to investigate the relationship between bank performance, M&A activity and accounting standards in EU-28 countries. The primary contribution the finding of poor performance of IFRS reporting merged banks compared to local GAAP banks in EU-28 countries in line with prior results of Huian (2012). In addition, several deal- and bank-specific characteristics that affect accounting standards influence M&A transactions in European banks.

Empirical results for expected credit losses of G-SIBs during COVID-19. The proof of the pudding is in the eating

This study examines the provision for credit losses and its disclosures for Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) in connection to the COVID-19 crisis. We find a profound difference in the increase of the provision for credit losses between banks that report under IFRS and US GAAP. For banks that report under US GAAP, the provision for credit losses more than doubles, while it increases by only 32 percent for banks that report under IFRS. This difference becomes even more striking when considering that the increase for IFRS-reporting banks is partly attributable to increased lending activities. This study further finds that European auditors are more likely to issue a Key Audit Matter (KAM), than auditors of US banks, and that these KAMs specifically relate to COVID-19 in the financial year 2020. Furthermore, IFRS-reporting banks disclose more information on expected credit losses than banks that report under US GAAP. Moreover, we find that European banks disclose relatively more information regarding the impact of COVID-19 than banks reporting under US GAAP.

Systemic liquidity contagion in the European interbank market

Systemic liquidity risk, defined by the International Monetary Fund as “the risk of simultaneous liquidity difficulties at multiple financial institutions,” is a key topic in financial stability studies and macroprudential policy-making. In this context, the complex web of interconnections of the interbank market plays the crucial role of allowing funding liquidity shortages to propagate between financial institutions. Here, we introduce a simple yet effective model of the interbank market in which liquidity shortages propagate through an epidemic-like contagion mechanism on the network of interbank loans. The model is defined by using aggregate balance sheet information of European banks, and it exploits country and bank-specific risk features to account for the heterogeneity of financial institutions. Moreover, in order to obtain the European-wide topology of the interbank network, we define a block reconstruction method based on the exchange flows between the various countries. We show that the proposed contagion model is able to estimate systemic liquidity risk across different years and countries. Results suggest that our effective contagion approach can be successfully used as a viable alternative to more realistic but complicated models, which not only require more specific balance sheet variables with high time resolution but also need assumptions on how banks respond to liquidity shocks.

The impact of bank liquidity risk on risk-taking and bank lending: evidence from European bank

Objective – This paper uses a sample of annual observations of European banks to examine whether the liquidity risk affects a bank’s risk-taking behavior and its future loan growth. Methodology – A sample of European banks (27 member countries of the European Union plus U.K.) over the period of 2005 to 2019 are used in this study. Liquidity risk is measured by the ratio of liquid assets to total assets. Given the longitudinal nature of the data, the authors use panel regression with bank fixed effects to control for unobserved characteristics that might affect the dependent variable. Findings – The authors find that banks holding more liquid assets take less risk and show a higher subsequent loan growth rate. These results hold for both small and large banks. Novelty – To the authors’ best knowledge, this is one of the earliest studies to carefully examine the effects of liquidity risk on risk-taking behavior and loan growth rate for European banks. Our research suggests that the current Basel III requirement on liquidity ratio can decrease bank’s risking-taking behavior while not necessarily impact their future loan growth. Type of Paper: Empirical JEL Classification: G21, G01, G18. Keywords: Bank Liquidity Risk; Risk-taking Behavior; Loan Growth; Basel III