Issue #4 (Volume 15 2020)

Researchers have long pondered on the online banking transaction adoption. Some of these studies focus primarily on the motivating factors that affect customers’ intention to adopt/accept these services (technologies). However, research into the constraining factors, in particular socio-economic factors, barely exist in the literature, especially in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. Against this background, the paper seeks to fill in this gap by: (1) assessing the socio-economic factors impeding the engagement of e-banking transactions among retail bank customers in Ghana, and (2) examining the moderating effect of ‘customer experience of Internet’ on the identified factors that inhibit the engagement in online banking in Ghana. The paper used a quantitative research approach to obtain data from two leading Ghanaian banks. Out of the 450 questionnaires distributed, 393 were valid for analysis. Data were analyzed with the aid of PLS-SEM (partial least squares and structural equation modeling). Findings revealed that perceived knowledge gap and the price of digital devices were directly important to the intention to disembark on e-banking transactions among Ghanaian bank customers. Whilst customer experience (frequent use of the Internet), as a moderator variable, has a significant effect on the interaction between perceived knowledge gap and the intent to disembark on e-banking transactions; and finance charges and the intent to disembark on e-banking transactions. Study implications and directions for future research are discussed in the paper.

Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Internal Grant Agency of Tomas Bata University under the Projects no. IGA/FaME/2019/008 and IGA/FaME/2020/002. The authors would like to extend their appreciation to Prof. Boris Popesko (Vice-dean for Research and Business Liaison) at the Faculty of Management and Economics for facilitating the financial readiness of this project.

Banks not only rely on the traditional way of generating income, they also opt for non-interest income (NII) to survive in a competitive environment. Banks in South Asia are diversifying their income from interest to non-interest sources in order to reduce risk and generate high returns. This study examines the impact of non-interest income (NII) and revenue concentration on banks’ risk in South Asian countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Panel data for eighty-five banks from 2009 to 2018 is used. Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is employed to analyze the data. The study finds that non-interest source income and revenue concentration significantly affect bank risk in the overall analysis. The study finds different results depending on the regulations and application of the regulatory system in each country. Non-interest income reveals a significant impact on bank risk for Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, but insignificant for Si Lanka. Revenue concentration has a significant effect on bank risk in Pakistan and India, however, it does not affect bank risk in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This study recommends that bank managers focus on different sources of revenue generation in order to minimize their level of risk through a diversification strategy to enhance efficiency. This study contributes to the banking sector literature of South Asian markets.

In the context of global economic integration, there are many opportunities for promoting economic development, but there are also challenges of complexity and risk in business activities. This always raises many questions that need to be resolved for credit institutions. The internal control system of credit institutions has become increasingly important for the sustainable development of the national financial system. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the internal control system in the practical application of Vietnamese credit institutions. Descriptive statistics are applied to analyze data using SPSS software. The structured questionnaire is designed to collect objective opinions and purposive sampling techniques among 382 experts who are managers of credit institutions in 2020. The results show that all five components improve the effectiveness of the internal control system, and the internal control system plays a role in the safety of Vietnamese credit institutions. Thus, the Central Bank of Vietnam should improve the legal framework and related internal control provisions for credit institutions in accordance with international principles to improve the effectiveness of the internal control system.

The purpose of this study is to examine the compliance of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Sukuk with Maqasid Al-Shari’ah (objectives of Islamic law) in relation to human development and well-being. The paper provides a theoretical model explaining how Sukuk can achieve Maqasid Al-Shari’ah by assessing the role of Sukuk in the circulation, development, and preservation of wealth to attain social justice. This study employs a qualitative methodology using an empirical case study. The primary data are collected through elite semi-structured interviews. The secondary data are obtained using a content analysis method from Sukuk’s Principle Terms and Conditions, Information Memorandum and IDB’s annual reports for the period 2007–2017 to explain the structures and features of the Sukuk and examine their compliance with the developed model. The findings indicate that the Medium Term Note (MTN) Sukuk program positively serves the elements of hifth al-mal (safeguarding wealth), showing a direct relationship between the shift of wealth among parties and the compliance of Maqasid Al-Shari’ah. This implies that the investments made by Sukuk would benefit everyone, including individuals, institutions, societies, and the whole country, to achieve human well-being and sustainable development. Nonetheless, the analysis suggests that Shari’ah supervisory boards need to focus more on the substance when structuring Sukuk to help Islamic finance benefit in terms of moving towards the achievement of Maqasid Al-Shari’ah.

Bank credit is one of the main sources of spending on productivity and economic services. However, because of the limitations in its amount, accurate planning is essential to optimize its allocation to applicants. Despite the total volume of credits allocated to the agricultural sector, as well as the large number of applicants and sub-sectors applying for these facilities, there is still no clear pattern for the optimal allocation of agricultural bank credits in Iran. It is bank managers who must decide on the distribution of financial capital in a competitive environment. Based on this fact, the paper investigates the optimum portfolio composition of the Agricultural Bank credits in accordance with optimistic, pessimistic, and collaborative strategies by using an interval non-linear multi-objective programming model and considering three different states in determining the rate of return using a genetic algorithm. The results showed that the current pattern of the distribution of bank credits is estimated as different from the optimal one. In the optimum patterns estimated in all states, the agriculture, agricultural services, animal husbandry, aviculture and greenhouses sections were assigned the largest shares in their optimum portfolio combination. Managers can choose their desired model according to three studied strategies and depending on the importance, different estimates of return, and risk of each of them.

The purpose of this study is to examine the variables that determine the interest rate spreads (IRS) of conventional banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). There are four major variables that affect a bank’s interest rate spreads, namely financial bank, macroeconomics, economic freedom and market structure variables. The study participants are conventional banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2017. Data was tested by using the OLS regression model. The results of this study show that all of the financial bank variables (Liquidity Risk (LR), Return to Asset Ratio (RTAR), Capital Adequacy (CA), Cost Efficiency Ratio (CER), and Risk Aversion (RA)) can significantly affect interest rate spreads. While of the macroeconomic variables, only two can significantly affect interest rate spreads, namely Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Inflation Rate (IR). Furthermore, all of the variables of economic freedom and market structure can significantly determine interest rate spreads.

Acknowledgment
The authors thank the Research Cluster of Governance and Competitiveness, Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Universitas Indonesia, for providing financial assistance and supporting materials related to discussion, and assistance in writing this paper.

It is believed that bank diversification increases financial stability. However, several theories argue that diversification can trigger the spread of failure because of the increased interconnectivity between institutions. The aim of this study is to determine the impact of diversification on the systemic risk of banks. The sample of the study consists of 21 conventional banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2009 to 2018. The study uses firm-year fixed effect panel regression and an instrumental variable approach to examine how firm-specific variables determine the level of systemic risk. Diversification is measured by bank assets, funding, and revenue diversification. To measure the systemic risk, the Conditional Value-at-Risk (ΔCoVaR) methodology is applied. The results show that an increase in funding diversification leads to a decrease in ΔCoVaR, indicating that funding diversification exacerbates the level of systemic risk, whereas asset diversification and revenue diversification do not have significant effects on the level of systemic risk. The empirical findings suggest that the interconnectivity between banks should be reduced by limiting the diversification of funding in the banks to minimize their systemic risks.

This paper investigates the interaction between fiscal and monetary policy in Iraq after 2003 using the prisoner’s dilemma.
The paper aims to determine the best form of coordination between these policies to achieve their goals; payoff matrix for both policies was constructed. To achieve the purpose, the quantitative approach was applied using several methods, including regression, building payoff matrices and decision analysis using a number of software.
The results of the monetary policy payment function show that inflation rate has an inverse relationship with the auctions of selling foreign currency and a positive relationship with the government’s activity, while the fiscal policy function shows that real growth is positively related to price levels (the inverted Phillips curve) and correlates with the government’s activity. After using the Gambit Solution to determine the Nash balance, which is achieved through the expansion strategies of both policies to confirm the results, the Promethee-Gaia method was used for multi-criteria decision making. When the two policies interact with similar forces (50% each), the best decision is one of the expansionary strategies that help achieve their main objectives in the short and long term, represented by price stability and economic growth.
The main conclusion is that the best way to achieve the goals of economic policy in Iraq is that the coordination of procedures between the two policies should be expansionary, since the Iraqi economy needs to be stimulated due to the under-exploitation of many its sectors, such as agriculture and industry.

This study aims to assess the impact of bank-specific factors and macroeconomic indicators on the net interest margin (NIM) of commercial banks in Indonesia. Data from Indonesian commercial banks are used. Data are collected from the banks’ annual reports and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) for the period 2008 to 2018. A panel data regression model is used to estimate the effect of bank-specific and macroeconomic factors. The results prove that the variables of Non-Performing Loans (NPL), Loan to Deposit Ratio (LDR), Return on Assets (ROA), Interest Rate (SBI), and Exchange Rate (FOREX) affect NIM. The exchange rate variable has a predominant effect, while the NPL factor has a less strong influence on NIM. The empirical evidence from this research is important for commercial banks in Indonesia to improve operational efficiency through NIM performance. Internal and external factors of a bank should be subject of attention of bank managers.

This study examines the efficiency of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in India using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Analysis is carried out on a sample of 19 PSBs that are existed during the study period from 2005 to 2018. There are two different aspects deliberated, namely technical efficiency of PSBs and the growth in their productivity. Input variables envisaged for the study are deposits, borrowings, fixed assets, and the number of employees. Loans and advances along with investments act as output variables to measure technical efficiency and productivity. The results indicate that the technical efficiency of PSBs ranges between 97% and 100%. Corporation Bank, Indian Bank, and Oriental Bank of Commerce outperformed their peers with 100% technical efficiency. Productivity growth among the sampled banks during the study period stood between 0.8% and 20%. However, Corporation Bank, Indian Bank, and Oriental Bank of Commerce registered 9.1%, 5.4% and 6.4% productivity growth, respectively. The results reveal that PSBs are working hard to optimize resource utilization. Researchers around the world can use DEA as a tool to measure the efficiency of banks with different input and output variables related to financial, marketing and managerial performance.

Acknowledgment
I like to express my profound thanks to Dr Kishore Selva Babu for rendering his language expertise. I also thank all the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and feedback that greatly improved the manuscript.

The purpose of this study is to examine the potential of Lebanese banks to address the economic challenges posed by COVID-19. These banks faced the disturbances of the 2011 Arab Spring, and these two crises have resulted in similar economic conditions, leading to an assessment of how Lebanese banks are dealing with the pandemic-led challenges. Exploratory analysis revealed the common features in the two events, and confirmatory analysis examined the hypotheses underlying a theoretical framework. Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data helped to scrutinize the two events. Content analysis of data collected from semi-structured interviews with seven senior banking professionals confirms that the Lebanese banking sector’s experience gained during the Arab Spring is a valuable asset for bankers, the Banque du Liban (BDL), and the government, which can be used to anticipate and deal with the COVID-driven economic crisis. The study finds three key moderating factors: trust deficit, inherited characteristics of the economy, and fiscal and monetary policy. Most of these conditions are permanent in nature and require long-term planning. As this research was conducted before the catastrophe caused by the August 2020 Beirut explosion, no aspects of the financial consequences to the Lebanese banking sector and economy resulting from this immerse shock are included.

In this paper, an analysis of the prediction of bank stability in the United States from 1990 to 2017 is carried out, using bank solvency, delinquency and an ad hoc bank stability indicator as variables to measure said stability. Different machine learning assembly models have been used in the study, a random forest is developed because it is the most accurate of all those tested. Another novel element of the work is the use of partial dependency graphs (PDP) and individual conditional expectation curves (ICES) to interpret the results that allow observing for specific values how the banking variables vary, when the macro-financial variables vary.
It is concluded that the most determining variables to predict bank solvency in the United States are interest rates, specifically the mortgage rate and the 5 and 10-year interest rates of treasury bonds, reducing solvency as these rates increase. For delinquency, the most important variable is the unemployment rate in the forecast. The financial stability index is made up of the normalized difference between the two factors obtained, one for solvency and the other for delinquency. The index prediction concludes that stability worsens as BBB corporate yield increases.

The paper focuses on the theoretical justification and theoretical foundations of using statistical criteria for identifying money laundering risk as a tool to prevent and counteract the legalization of bank clients’ proceeds.
The hypothesis is that the coefficient of variation can be appropriately used as an identifier for money laundering risk. To prove this hypothesis, a special methodology was used: generalization, grouping, statistical analysis of time series, and correlation analysis – to identify and analyze the hidden signs of the customer income legalization in the financial activities of a bank; mathematical statistics and scaling – to determine the quantitative values of risk levels for the use of bank services for legalizing customer income. The analysis of financial activities of 32 Ukrainian banks aimed at identifying money-laundering risks showed that banks in which the National Bank of Ukraine revealed suspicious transactions with money-laundering features (16 operating banks) had much higher coefficients of variation in the volume of cash flows, in cash flows for on-demand accounts of economic entities, in cash flows of on-demand accounts for individuals, compared with banks in which violations of legislation in the field of financial monitoring were revealed (eight banks), and with banks where violations were not found (eight banks). This proves that sudden changes in customer transaction volume can be a sign of money laundering risk.

Acknowledgment
State grant for fundamental scientific research “Risk-oriented approach in countering money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” (state registration number 0118U000058).

The development of globalization creates a need for diagnosis of financial stability at the global level. This study aims to analyze the financial stability of the global banking system and identify threats to stability at the level of geographic regions and countries. The study uses the methods of a structured system, comparative and cluster analysis. The empirical study is based on World Bank data for 126 countries for the period 1998–2017. One of the key results of the study is the development of quantitative indicators of the financial stability of the world banking system. These indicators differ from the existing ones due to the predictive nature of the former. The study also proposes criteria of qualitative assessment of the level of financial stability of the world banking system and its individual elements in the form of regional and national banking systems. In addition, appropriate algorithms were developed to calculate the proposed indicators and criteria. The results helped to form clusters of countries in terms of the level of their banking system stability, compile maps of financial stability risks at the global level, and identify countries that are sources of potential threats to financial stability. The empirical part of the study confirms the practical applicability of the proposed analytical tools. The study shows that in 2017, the banking system of Asian countries moved to the high-risk zone. Potential threats to the financial stability of the global banking system come from the European and Asian banking systems, as well as from the Australian banking system.

Acknowledgment
The study was funded by the RFBR according to the research project No 18 010 00232 “A methodology of multilevel system of diagnostics and regulation of financial stability” year 2018–2020.

This paper aims to study Islamic banking (IB) regulations related to the influence of the Sharia corporate governance (SCG) mechanism on financial reporting timeliness (FRTL) in Indonesia. The unbalanced panel data obtained empirically during a period that ranges from 2016 to 2019 includes observations from 54 Islamic commercial banks (ICb), 82 Sharia business unit (SBu) banks and 82 conventional banks (CB). Panel regression model is used in this study to adjust the unbalanced panel data obtained. The findings indicate that the variation of FRTL for IBs (represented by ICb) is determined by Sharia corporate governance (SCG) mechanisms. Further findings relate to a comparative study of variations in FRTL between ICb, SBu, and CBs. Although there are different determinants between ICb (SCG) and CBs (CG), there is no difference in FRTL variation between the two. Meanwhile, between ICb and SBu, whose regulations have the same determinant, there are differences between the two FRTL variations. The novelty of this paper is that, firstly, SCG is constructed on the basis of the IBs regulation to determine FRTL, and secondly, the variationі in FRTL between the IBs and CBs groups are compared.

Inflation and lending rates are two important macroeconomic indicators as they affect economic growth. The correlation between the inflation rate and the lending rate in Vietnam and China is analyzed to determine whether the lending rate causes inflation or not. An ordinary least square model (OLS) and a unit root test are applied to check the correlation and cointegration related to the inflation and lending rates to avoid spurious regression. The research time series data were collected from 1996 to 2017. The correlation of Vietnam’s variables is 56%, the correlation of China’s variables is 55%, which is a close correlation. The empirical cointegration test results for Vietnam and China are suitable for two research models. The relationship between these two indicators influences each other. In the short term, inflation stimulates economic growth through loose monetary policy through the lending rate. However, in the long term, if the money supply increases continuously, inflation will slow economic growth and increase bad debt. The empirical results are to make accurate forecasts and determine monetary policy for micro-managers who set the goal of sustainable economic growth and have a strategy for economic development in the short and long term.

Field salespersons’ disengagement in deposit money banks (DMB) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has maintained an upward trajectory. Failures in sales target delivery mostly take the blame. Despite the obvious implications of non-target delivery for DMBs’ financial health, there is under-reportage culminating in little understanding regarding those factors that predict field salespersons’ performance from typical SSA settings. This paper bridges the gap by empirically examining antecedents of field salespersons’ sales target performance in DMBs in Nigeria that is alarmingly competitive and significantly characterized by physical-cash-transactions. Also, it examines the mediating effect of organizational commitment regarding identified antecedents on FS sales target performance in DMBs. A sample of 334 field salespersons from 17 DMBs in Southeastern Nigeria was surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach with the aid of Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) 25.0 software concerning hypothesized paths in the research model. Reliability, convergence and discriminant validity were checked. Significant and positive relations regarding motivation, aptitude, and job satisfaction were confirmed; nevertheless, role perceptions and work environment show a negative and significant effect on sales target actualization. Skill-set shows no statistical support. Organizational commitment as a mediator shows a complementary partial mediation effect on determinants and sales target performance. Understanding both economic and human-inclined variables is crucial to improving the performance of field salespersons. Theoretical implications and directions for further research were proposed.

Acknowledgment
The authors express their deep gratitude to Prof. A. D. Nkamnebe of the Department of Marketing, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria, for reviewing the manuscript and suggestions for improving the quality of the paper.

This paper aimed to empirically examine the extent to which capital structure impacts the profitability of Nigerian Deposit Money Banks considering the profitability of eight Nigerian Deposit Money Banks from 2003 to 2018 (16 years). A descriptive research design was adopted for this study, and data were analyzed using regression. The study used secondary data obtained from published annual reports of selected Nigerian Deposit Money Banks on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for four years (2003–2018). The study concluded that the indicators used to measure capital structure (debt-equity ratio and leverage ratio) and profitability (returns on equity) had a negative relationship. This means that the use of debts mixed with equity (debt-equity ratio and leverage ratio) in improper proportion as financing methods can negatively affect profitability. Hence, there is a need to identify the optimal mix of capital structure (debts mixed with equity) that maximizes profitability, as well as firm and shareholder value with minimum agency costs as suggested by the trade-off theory and agency theory, respectively. The alternative is to give preference to retained earnings (internal source of finance) as funding source.

Acknowledgment
All researchers and non-researchers that contributed to this paper are highly appreciated.