How does the central bank recapitalization policy affect competition in commercial banks of Sub-Saharan Africa?

  • Received November 8, 2021;
    Accepted March 11, 2022;
    Published May 31, 2022
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/bbs.17(2).2022.09
  • Article Info
    Volume 17 2022, Issue #2, pp. 98-112
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

In the last two decades, central banks in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have witnessed a trend of the recapitalization policy for commercial banks, and many more are bracing up to undertake the same reform. This has raised debates on whether and how it affects the competitiveness of commercial banks. Nevertheless, empirical evidence remains sparse and inclusive, especially for SSA countries. It is on this premise that this study, therefore, investigates competition in commercial banks before and after recapitalization for six selected SSA countries. The study employs the Panzar-Rosse model to analyze bank-level and macroeconomic indicators between 2000 and 2015. The results show that the H-statistic increased from –0.15, –0.28 and -0.82 before capitalization to 0.94, 0.97 and 0.7 after recapitalization for the first, second and third estimations respectively. This showed that bank competition is higher for the period after recapitalization than the period before recapitalization. The study, therefore, concludes that bank recapitalization could be necessary, especially for countries with low minimum paid-up capital. It is to the extent that banks can now be self-reliant with a higher capacity to invest, as this will significantly improve competition in commercial banks’ services.

Acknowledgment
This research study was supported by a grant from the African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi Kenya. The findings, opinions and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Consortium, its members or the AERC Secretariat.

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    • Table 1. Interpretation of the Panzar-Rosse H-statistics
    • Table 2. Summary statistics of data
    • Table 3. Panel unit root results
    • Table 4. Panzar-Rosse estimation results for competition
    • Table A1. Years of recapitalization and respective new minimum bank capital
    • Table A2. Summary statistics of variables employed for selected countries
    • Conceptualization
      Denis Nfor Yuni, Marcellus Ifeanyi Attama
    • Formal Analysis
      Denis Nfor Yuni, Marcellus Ifeanyi Attama
    • Funding acquisition
      Denis Nfor Yuni, Marcellus Ifeanyi Attama
    • Investigation
      Denis Nfor Yuni, Marcellus Ifeanyi Attama
    • Writing – original draft
      Denis Nfor Yuni, Marcellus Ifeanyi Attama
    • Writing – review & editing
      Denis Nfor Yuni, Marcellus Ifeanyi Attama