THE PECULIARITY OF THE COOPERATIVE AND MUTUAL MODEL: EVIDENCE FROM THE EUROPEAN BANKING SECTOR

The crucial role of mutual banks in promoting local development is highlighted by an extensive theoretical and empirical literature. The historical success of mutual banks derives not only from their specific business model, but also from their peculiar and distinguishing corporate governance with member ownership. According to a copious literature, these features have probably allowed mutual banks to better withstand financial crisis. This work compares the cost efficiency of European mutual banks by analyzing a sample which consists of the universe of all the banks operating in Italy, Germany, France and Spain over the period 2011–2016, by employing a stochastic approach (Stochastic Frontier Analysis-SFA) to determine the effects of the recent financial crisis on the efficiency level of this particular kind of bank. The analysis aims to point out the determinants of efficiency in order to understand if the mutual model reveals to be still attractive in the modern banking system. The main contribution of the paper to previous literature consists in comparing different impacts of financial crisis on efficiency of mutual banks in main European countries. Furthermore, the results enrich the recent debate about the cooperative and mutual banking system and its raison d’être. Our results show that the European mutual banks reveal a higher degree of efficiency with respect to commercial banks. Cost efficiency appears to be significantly and negatively related to the level of regulatory capital, the level of credit risk, the level of leverage and the cost-income ratio. On the other hand, it is significantly and positively related to the profitability of the traditional lending activity, to the level of prudence in terms of provisions against credit risk and to the amount of liquidity as a buffer against unexpected troubles.

Is competition among cooperative banks a negative sum game?

Does ‘inner competition’ – rivalry among network members – worsen performance in a network of cooperative banks? By weakening the functionality of the network, inner competition might, in fact, endanger network-dependent scale economies. Testing our hypothesis on Italy's network of mutual cooperative banks (Banche di Credito Cooperativo – BCCs), we find a worsening of performance of both incumbents and (even more) aggressors when BCCs compete among themselves. However, the worsening is mild when BCCs compete with comparable non-mutual banks external to the BCC network. We conclude that inner competition among cooperative banks is a negative sum game and, thus, limiting it would be desirable to preserve the stability of cooperative banking networks.

DIVERSITY MEASURES AND QUALITY OF BANKS’ BOARDS: THE ITALIAN CASE

Most of the studies in corporate governance in banks and other types of firms investigate board diversity and quality separately, without considering the possible relationship between these two. To fill this gap, this study investigates through a new methodological approach the level of quality and diversity of the boards of a sample of Italian banks using a proprietary hand-collected database; in addition, it examines the relationship between diversity and quality of boards to verify whether more diversity consistently relates to higher quality, in accordance with the regulatory approach. Evidence shows that especially small and mutual banks need to improve quality and diversity, as they probably suffer from their limited attractiveness to top profile directors. Moreover, on analyzing interrelations we find evidence of a positive association between board diversity and quality. In particular, financial skills and experience of directors improve the qualitative level of banking boards.

Community in Credit Unions: Has banking regulationimpaired CSR in Australian Customer Owned Banks?

This paper presents a sector scan of a sample of Australian Credit Unions and Mutual Banks to examine the CSR reporting from the perspective of the three pillars model proposed by vanOorschot, de Hoog, van der Steen and van Twist (2013). It is argued that the pillar requiringco-operatives to ensure activities which ‘aim for change’, should promote increasing adoptionof CSR. The paper theorises that regulatory requirements imposed in Australia on all bankinginstitutions carry a higher proportional cost to the customer owned banking sector than theshareholder based commercial banks. This consumption of the limited financial resourcesavailable in this sector of banking services, are inhibiting regional Customer Owned Bankingproviders, as co-operative organisations, to fulfil the required co-operative principle to instigatechange for the betterment of communities. This failure could signal the demise of some entitiesin the jurisdiction of Customer Owned Banking.

Mergers decision in Japanese small mutual banks: efficiency improvement or empire buildings?

With the number of bank consolidations increasing around the world since the 1990s, several studies have examined what factors drive banks to consolidate, and some argue that bank managers who have a motive of empire buildings choose mergers. In this study, we deal with mergers among Japanese small mutual banks (credit associations or Shinkin banks) during the period 1996 to 2005. Japanese credit associations have been experiencing an unprecedented wave of consolidation, with their number decreasing from 410 (March 1996) to 292 (April 2006). Interestingly, unlike stock companies, mutual companies are often expected to be weak in terms of disciplining managers. If so, mutual banks tend to choose inefficient mergers at the expense of other stakeholders. Here, we use the stochastic frontier approach (SFA) to obtain “cost efficiency” proxy. We find that while the efficiency of acquiring credit associations decreases during the merger period, mergers do ultimately improve efficiency. Based on our results we find that raising efficiency, not for building empires, is an important goal for such credit association mergers.