With the growth of an economy, the banking industry expands and the competitiveness becomes intense with the increased number of banks in the economy. The objective of this research was to discover the influence of industry-specific and macroeconomic determinants of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the entire banking system of Bangladesh. We performed an analysis for the period from 1979 to 2018 by an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and checked the robustness of the results in the vector error correction (VEC) model. The outcomes of this research suggest that both industry-specific and macroeconomic factors influence NPLs significantly. Among the industry-specific determinants, bank loan growth, net operating profit, and deposit rates negatively impact NPLs with statistical significance while bank liquidity and lending rates have a significant positive affiliation with NPLs. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth and unemployment, among the macroeconomic variables, have a negative connection with NPLs. Whereas, domestic credit and exchange rates have a significant positive association with NPLs. The contribution of this research is that the outcomes found by means of econometric models can be used for predicting and measuring NPLs in upcoming years, not only for Bangladesh but also for developing and emerging economies. Individual banks, as well as the banking sector, by and large, can get a guideline from this research.

During the last few decades, the world financial crisis sheds on the bank risk, which creates a direct threat to the existence of banks. This paper investigates the relationship between bank risk and loan growth in the South Asian economies. The study has collected data from BankFocus of 118 commercial banks from 2011 to 2019. This study explores three hypotheses explaining the relation between (i) Bank Risk and Loan Growth; (ii) Loan growth and Bank Profitability; and (iii) Loan growth and bank solvency. Results show that loan growth can induce bank risk in the South Asian economic region. At the same time, Banks' solvency and profitability are correlated to bank risk with statistical significance. Primarily OLS has been applied, followed by GMM estimation. Non-Performing Loan (NPL) has been used as the proxy of bank risk. Further, to check the robustness of the investigation, we have used ZSCORE as a replacement to NPL. The results derived from regressions can put light on banks' poor performance in the South Asian counties and, simultaneously, may set guidance for policymakers of emerging economies.

Abstract

Purpose: The study aims to show the effect of capital structure on banks' profitability in developing countries. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is conducted on 28 commercial banks from 2009 to 2016 of panel data to infer the concurrent relationship between capital structure and profitability. The preliminary diagnoses picked up the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) method to address the endogeneity issue in dynamic panel data. Findings: The study found that the bank's capital structure is negatively associated with profitability and vice versa. Moreover, asset tangibility and regulatory capital harm banks' current capital structure, whereas tax shield and 1-year lagged capital structure have a positive influence. On the contrary, a bank's profitability is positively associated with bank growth, and 1-year lagged profit, while credit risk and liquidity are negatively affected. The study implies that banks should use an appropriate mixture of debt and equity; otherwise, immature decisions in capital structure may demise banks' profitability, which will ultimately turn into bank failure. Practical Implications: Adherence to the adoption of stringent capital structure allures banks in maximizing profit to cope with market competition. Beyond the theoretical aspects, the study extends its scope in the practical implications of adopting a profit-maximizing capital structure in a developing country context. However, capital structure choice differs from bank to bank based on their performance and position in the market. The study clearly addressed some of the relevant issues which affect banks' performance adversely in practice. Originality/Value: The study contributes to the existing literature and tries to explain the role of capital structure in banks' performance, mostly in submerge economies.

The global financial crisis and stiff market competition enhance risk exposures that raise debate on the cost of financial intermediation and the supremacy of banks' efficiency. This study examines the concurrent effects of bank risk, efficiency and cost of financial intermediation of Bangladeshi commercial banks. The Two-Step System GMM (2GMM) estimators of unbalanced dynamic panel data of 32 commercial banks from 2000 to 2016 addresses key factors rigorously in the light of bank-level, industry-level, and macroeconomic-level phenomenon. Efficiency gains cost the spread of banks' financial intermediation, and risk-taking negatively affects the return. Cost-efficient banks are taking more credit risk; however, more efficiency gains reduce banks' risk substantially. Size (cost of intermediation) of banks positively (inversely) affect the risk-taking (efficiency) behaviour of banks. Market competition enhances the risk and efficiency and reduces banks'