Cost-management in correspondent banking relationships

This study begins with the assumption that the existence of abnormal circumstances will force investors to take measures to protect their investments in the capital market. Recently, the stock index in the Indonesian market has been declining and continued to fall until the end of April 2020 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. In terms of efficient market theory, prospect theory and signaling theory, this study aims to analyze the relationship between risk and return in the Indonesian capital market during the Covid-19 pandemic as a manifestation of investor behavior. To test hypotheses, the correlation test, the independent sample t-test and the Cohen test for 629 public firms with 52,836 observable data are used. The findings show that for financial sectors and non-financial sectors, the fourth period differs from previous periods when the relationship between systematic risk and stock returns is positive, although only non-financial sectors have a significant effect. The results show that efficient market theory, prospect theory and signaling theory are consistent with the phenomena around the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. In addition, Cohen’s test results suggest that government policies in the face of the pandemic are successful in stimulating the market.

Banking system is an important part of the financial system of each country. The operating efficiency in the commercial banking system will provide the tools and financial products more attractive and relevant to the needs of actors in the economy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the efficiency of 26 Vietnamese commercial banks. The paper uses a quantitative method with the nonparametric frontier analysis, data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, to measure the efficiency of Vietnamese commercial banks. The paper adopts an intermediation approach as the banks are viewed as financial intermediaries providing financial services and payment services to entities in the economy. Research findings reveal that Vietnamese commercial banks have effectively leveraged the positive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, since the average efficiency in 2020 improved over the pre-pandemic period in 2019 on the same models for comparison and estimation. Based on such findings, the study makes some suggestions and recommendations to help Vietnamese commercial banks increase their operational efficiency in the context of the prolonged pandemic.

Acknowledgment
The author wishes to acknowledge support from the Banking University – Ho Chi Minh City. This research was made possible thanks to all valuable support from relevant stakeholders.

This paper examines how competition affects bank fragility and how this relation varies in normal times and during a financial crisis using the data from Indonesian commercial banking industry. The author finds significant evidence, both statistically and economically, that more competition reduces bank fragility. In particular, the author finds that a decrease in Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) of deposits by 100 points leads to an increase in bank Z-score by 14.22 percent from its mean. Similarly, a decrease in HHI of loans by 100 points leads to an increase in Z36 by 20.44 percent. This finding is consistent across different kinds of robustness tests, including endogeneity, as well as alternative bank fragility and competition measures. However, this competition-stability nexus holds only in normal times and is reversed during a financial crisis. This suggests that the impact of competition on bank fragility is conditional on the economic condition.