“…T A B L E 5 : slope homogeneity test It implies that these two banks enjoy large size-related benefits such as market power, operational and efficiency gains, and economic rents emanating enhanced bargaining power due to their large size which spur an increase in profitability (Al-Matari, 2021;Noone et al, 2022;Olaniyi, Olayemi, et al, 2017) and scope as they experience an increase in their sizes. The increase in size enables them to spread their fixed costs over their assets' bases, which subsequently triggers a decline in average cost (Kendo & Tchakounte, 2022;Kumar & Baag, 2022;Olaniyi, Olayemi, et al, 2017;Regehr & Sengupta, 2016;Sanyaolu et al, 2019;Srivastava & Upadhyay, 2019), and thereby a rise in profitability.…”