Issue #4 (Volume 16 2021 )

While marketing experts agree that brand personality is important for brand identification, there is no evidence of a validated brand-identification-and-personality scale in the context of retail banking in South Africa. To address this literature gap, this study’s purpose was to explain the process used to validate brand identification and personality within the retail-banking context of South Africa. A convenience sample of Generation Y banking consumers was selected, and a descriptive and single cross-sectional research design was followed. Self-administered questionnaires were used as a data collection tool and a sample size was chosen (N = 235). Data analysis entailed descriptive and confirmatory factor analysis. The confirmatory factor analysis results validated brand identification and brand personality in retail banking as a five-factor structure that includes bank identification and brand personality dimensions such as successfulness, sophistication, sincerity and ruggedness. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate the internal consistency and composite reliability of the measurement model, as well as construct, convergent, discriminant and nomological validity. In addition, the measurement model revealed no signs of multicollinearity between the factors, and the model fit index values of IFI, TLI, CFI, SRMR and RMSEA showed a good fitting model. This study concluded that this five-factor model is a reliable and valid instrument of brand identification and personality in retail banking and is the first validated brand-identification-and-personality scale within the retail-banking context of South Africa.

This paper aims to examine the impact of emotional intelligence (EQ), employee empowerment (EE), and cultural intelligence (CQ) on commercial bank employees’ job satisfaction in Bangladesh. For this purpose, a survey questionnaire was developed based on pre-tested constructs. The study used a convenience sampling technique, supplemented by a non-probability sampling method. 200 bank employees were invited to participate in the survey; finally, 130 responses were received as fully complete, with a 65% response rate. Hence, the sample size is n = 130. Cronbach’s alpha value was used to determine the internal consistency of the study constructs. SPSS version 26.0 was used to analyze the correlation test and hypotheses test. The findings show that emotional intelligence (EQ) with a beta (β) value of 0.510 has a statistical and positive effect on bank employees’ job satisfaction. Also, employee empowerment (EE) with a beta value of (β) 0.418 and cultural intelligence (CQ) with a beta (β) of 0.372 were found to be significant predictors of job satisfaction. This indicates that bank managers should utilize EQ and CQ to increase bank employee satisfaction and focus on employee engagement at the workplace. According to the study, if bank employees become more emotionally stable and culturally intelligent at their workplace, they will be more satisfied with their current jobs. Besides, if bank employees are given more opportunities to carry out their job responsibilities, they will be more satisfied with their jobs. The paper outlines several significant implications for commercial bank managers and offers some notable directions for future research.

To verify if female directors on the bank’s board play a role in managing bank stability, this paper applies a multi-threshold model to quarterly data from 26 Taiwanese commercial banks over the 2002–2018 period to find the factors that influence bank financial stability and to examine how female board directorship affects it. The empirical results suggest that women on the board do play a guarding role in a bank’s financial soundness when banks reach a high debt ratio regime. The influence of female directors on the capital adequacy ratio is positive for banks with a debt ratio higher than 92.69%, and for non-performing loans it is positive within the regime of the debt ratio 90.71% ≤ τ < 95.39%.
In particular, it has been found that the value of total assets is a factor that positively affects a bank’s financial soundness, which supports the “too big to fail” theory for banks with high total assets and debt ratios. Revenue has the opposite effect on financial soundness when it negatively affects the capital adequacy ratio and positively affects non-performing loans. A larger board size reduces banks’ financial soundness, which is contrary to the higher proportion of women on the board of directors, which generally contributes to the financial stability of the bank.

Although mobile banking is one of the online banking services that makes it easy for consumers to conduct financial transactions, research on Islamic mobile banking in developing countries with a Muslim majority is still relatively insignificant. Not all Muslim consumers are interested in or intend to use conventional mobile banking services. Therefore, the aim of this study is to integrate the TAM theory and the construct of religiosity to examine consumer intentions to use Islamic mobile banking services. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire of 482 Muslim consumers in Indonesia using convenience sampling techniques. The collected data were then analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM-AMOS). The results of this study showed that perceived ease of use cannot influence the perceived usefulness and attitudes of variables towards Islamic mobile banking. While perceived usefulness has been proven to influence attitudes toward Islamic mobile banking and may be the largest contributor to increased intentions to use Islamic mobile banking. On the other hand, this study reveals that the influence of religiosity can positively and significantly foster consumer sensibility and intention to use Islamic mobile banking.

Women are responsible for the fastest economic growth in the world through their commercial activities. Despite this notable act, women in developing countries are most times sidelined in accessing financial incentives from banks. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the criteria used by banks and the problems encountered by women in accessing building credits in Nigeria. The study used a cross-sectional survey research design that utilized an electronic questionnaire instrument. The data obtained were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, 100% stacked bars, mean score, ANOVA, and categorical regression (CAT-REG) tests. The result revealed that the primary criteria to access building credits across different banks in Nigeria were the source of income/level of income, credit status/review, and the value of the collateral. When women can access building credits from banks, it can lead to improved living conditions for women, improved work-life, and benefits for their children. However, the lack of collateral, lack of financial literacy, lack of formal employment, and lack of right to ownership of property are limiting factors in women lending from banks. Furthermore, gender discrimination, lack of financial literacy, and low educational background could influence women’s access to building credits from banks. To facilitate the provision of loans to women from banks, it is necessary to improve government policy, economic reforms and banking legislation for women’s access to loans.

Acknowledgment
The article processing charge (APC) for this paper was supported by Covenant University Centre for Research, Innovation and Discovery, Nigeria.

The objective of this study is to provide more empirical evidence on the impact of the capital adequacy ratio, as well as control and micro variables, on the financial stability of commercial banks in emerging markets such as Vietnam. The study analyzes the impact of the capital adequacy ratio on the financial stability of 18 Vietnamese commercial banks in the period 2010–2020 using the Generalized method of moments (GMM) model. Empirical research results show that the capital adequacy ratio has a positive correlation with the financial stability of Vietnamese commercial banks during the study period. Besides, the study also uses control variables such as Profitability through ROA and ROE, Bank Size (SIZE), Loans to Assets Ratio (LTA), Deposits to Assets Ratio (DTA), and Loan Loss Ratio (LLR), to analyze their impact on the financial stability of Vietnamese commercial banks.
Based on the above results, the study proposes some policy implications to enhance the financial stability of Vietnamese commercial banks using the capital adequacy ratio and the control variables from the GMM model that are statistically significant. The paper also pointed out four limitations of the study in terms of data, research samples, methods and research models, so that further research can be more complete.

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

The relevance of this study is warranted by changes in the modern understanding of the interrelation between economic growth and financial depth. While earlier studies consider it to be universally positive, newer ones tend to challenge both nature and direction of such a relationship. This paper aims to investigate the nature of the financial depth-economic growth nexus in Ukraine during 2008–2019 based on data provided by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine, using the standard OLS regression. The resulting model with an adjusted R squared of 0,96 confirms a strong (within a 90% confidence interval) linear relationship between real GDP per capita, denominated in local currency, which was used as a proxy for economic growth, and financial depth, which was assessed using three indicators: the share of bank loans to non-financial institutions in real GDP, the share of non-bank loans to non-financial institutions in real GDP, and the share of stock market capitalization in real GDP. Both bank and non-bank loans to real GDP ratios have a negative impact on economic growth (UAH 2,154 and UAH 78,154 decline per 1% growth, respectively), while market capitalization provides a positive influence (UAH 1,641,130 growth per 1% growth). This implies that, despite concentrating the majority of the resources available to the Ukrainian financial sector, the banking sector does not contribute to its economic growth. This can be alleviated by imposing additional restrictions on the amount of government securities allowed in a bank’s capital structure.

Acknowledgments
The paper was funded as a part of the “Relationship between financial depth and economic growth in Ukraine” research project (No. 0121U110766), conducted at the State Institution “Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the NAS of Ukraine”.

Banking stability is essential to any economy due to its many functions, including intermediation, payment facilitation, and credit creation. Thus, the stability of the banking industry is one of the critical ingredients in economic growth. This paper analyzes how bank capital requirements, credit, and liquidity impact bank solvency using ten major banks that control 90% of the market share in the UK in 2009–2018.
The GMM model indicates a strong association between credit and liquidity risks. That is, when banks finance a risky or distressed project, this will lead to an increase in non-performing loans (NPL), which reduces bank liquidity. Poor liquidity profile of the bank may restrict it from providing financial intermediation role. In addition, the findings indicate that efficiency, asset quality, and economic growth have a significant positive effect on the solvency of banks. The results also show that the regulatory capital (tier1) has a positive significant influence on solvency of the banks. Further, the results indicate that during the economic boom, banks tend to increase their regulatory capital. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that during the “good time”, banks can accumulate enough capital that is genuinely capable of absorbing negative shock. Also, it is important for banks to ensure that they are efficient but also have robust credit appraisal system to reduce NPL. This paper also demonstrates the implication of increased capital requirements. That is, increased capital requirements ensure not only banks are liquid but also solvent which enables them to provide financial intermediation.

The rapid growth of financial deepening raises the problem of its effect, beneficial for economic development. This paper aims to demonstrate the relationship between economic growth (GDP per capita growth, GNI per capita) and financial depth (domestic credit to private sector and credit availability) in 142 countries, split into four income groups, over 2000–2020, using correlation analysis and data from the World Bank and the IMF. Besides, a comparative analysis of domestic credit to the private sector, economic freedom, Gini index, total government expenditure and national savings of countries that increased their income group status over 2011–2020 is presented. Financial deepening (increased credit availability and expansion of domestic credit to the private sector) encourages economic growth (via GNI per capita and GDP per capita growth). Although the presence of a nonlinear relationship between economic growth (GDP per capita growth) and financial depth (domestic credit to private sector and credit availability) over 1991–2020 is insufficient, there is a linear relationship between GNI per capita and credit availability, between credit availability and domestic credit to the private sector for the same sample of countries over 2000–2020. Meanwhile, there is a tendency towards a decrease in the correlation between GNI per capita and GDP per capita growth. Given the revealed linear correlation between domestic credit to the private sector and GNI per capita, financial deepening positively impacts income growth, and this dependence strengthens with increasing income levels. Target values of domestic credit to the private sector are proposed for the income group transition.

Acknowledgment
The paper was funded as a part of the “Relationship between financial depth and economic growth in Ukraine” research project (No. 0121U110766), conducted at the State Institution “Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the NAS of Ukraine”.

The purpose of this paper is to explore electronic payments, which are considered one of the most important tools in financial technology. Hence, electronic payments play a great role in enhancing the financial performance of the Bank of Palestine. The study uses three dependent variables such as return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and earnings per share (EPS). The study methodology employs a descriptive and analytical approach to investigate the bank’s data during the period of 2010–2019. Hence, the findings show that electronic payment methods have an important impact on the bank’s financial performance, through the return on assets and equity indicators, which helps to reduce costs and thus increase profits. However, there is no statistically significant effect on the earnings per share. What is more, the Bank of Palestine uses a wide variety of electronic payment methods. Thus, the study suggests the necessity to increase the effectiveness of the information security from fraud risks, in addition to activating supervisory and regulatory authorities (such as the Palestinian Monetary Authority), to strengthen the application of electronic payment tools.

Acknowledgment
Special thanks to Palestine Technical University Kadoorie for their valuable and continuous support.

Education financing is a key retail banking product for most commercial banks and a lifeline for large numbers of students seeking professional courses. This study aimed to identify the impediments in the successful delivery of this loan product in India, where it is marketed majorly by public sector banks under a common scheme devised by the government. The study adopted a qualitative approach to probe behavioral issues related to the credit appraisal process, which is the most suitable approach for unstructured exploratory design. Since credit managers in banks work with applicants for education loans, their insight becomes essential to understanding the issues plaguing with the smooth implementation and delivery of this scheme. Thus, ten public sector bank managers working in different geographical locations were selected using a homogeneity purposive sampling technique. The study collected 41 responses, which were then divided into 4 major categories. The responses were simultaneously transcribed manually to ensure that data remained close to the original verbatim of the participant. All transcribed interviews were imported into ATLAS.ti 8 Software for analysis. The 4 observational categories lead to a broad understanding that product accessibility, operational hurdles, scheme features and limitations in bad loan recovery are key bottlenecks in managing education loans. These responses had over 80% commonality on key issues of product feature and cost. It was concluded that education financing can perform better by improving access, rationalizing interest rates and liberalizing repayment terms. These findings can be used as input for tweaking the product for better performance.

Social isolation is a globally accepted policy of governments worldwide to halt the rapid spread of coronavirus in the community. As a result, all banks must be closed, and bank officers must work from home through the Internet instead of at their offices. Hence, stressors and conflicts wreak havoc on bank officers’ mental health and work productivity. This study focused on determining the influence of burnout and inter-role conflicts on the working performance of bankers who have got children. An online structured questionnaire was utilized to survey 326 bankers throughout the nation. The PLS-SEM and Smart PLS were adopted to analyze and test hypotheses. The findings corroborated the harmful effects of burnout and inter-role conflicts on the job performance of bankers who have got children. Three variables were determined to positively affect burnout, such as occupational stress, parenting stress, and inter-role conflicts, whereas the role ambiguity and role overload sparked the inter-role conflicts of bankers. This study recommended four practical suggestions for both bankers and banks’ policymakers, including: achieving work-family balance is a challenging task; the need to implement more robust organizational support policies to remove the burden and job-stressors; the administrative workload should be reduced and cut off; and bankers individually should get familiar with saying “No” to the unimportant and taking care of themselves during pandemic isolation.

This paper aims to measure the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate Governance (CG), and profitability in listed Egyptian banks. COVID-19 is expected to affect this relationship if the year 2020 is taken. Profitability is measured by earnings per share (EPS), return on equity (ROE), and return on assets (ROA). CSR is measured as a dummy variable and CG is measured by the chief executive officer (CEO) duality. There are three control variables, such as the Islamic variable, which classifies a bank into Islamic or conventional, bank age, and bank size. The paper uses multiple regression and logistic regression models. The final sample is 12 banks consisting of 9 conventional banks and 3 Islamic banks (IBS). The results show no impact of profitability on CSR. The results prove a significant positive impact of profitability on CG; there is a significant negative relationship between CEO duality and EPS at a 0.05 level. CSR has a significant impact on CG at a 0.001 level. The results show a clear impact of COVID-19 on the impact of CSR on profitability only when measured by ROA at 0.001 in the period 2014–2019.

Investors make solid decisions when evaluating their investments based on positive indicators the firm may show in the future, rather than based on its past performance. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the relationship between performance criteria and the most significant value-based criterion; Economic Value Added (EVA). Further, it evaluates the impact of future EVA values on the bank value. Panel Data Analysis and the OLS Regression model are used to estimate the regression equation. The analysis is performed using data of 10 banks on the BIST Banks Index over the period 2011 to 2020. Furthermore, the EVA criterion was converted into standardized EVA(SEVA) by dividing EVA by total assets. The OLS regression analysis results revealed that the model’s explanatory power for the SEVA variable is 71.92%. The three variables that have positive correlation with SEVA are earnings per share (EPS) and TOBINQ rates at the 1% significance level and the price to sales growth rate with a degree of significance at 10%. Regarding the Panel Data Analysis results, while the explanatory power of the SEVA variable is 72.14%, its association with the EPS and TOBINQ criteria was found to be significant at the 1% significance level. The empirical investigations reveal that the model developed using the future SEVA as a proxy for bank value is found to be promising, and it is accepted that the SEVA variable can be used instead of the bank value.

The paper examines the importance of financial instability for the development of four Norwegian banking crises. The crises are the Post First World War Crisis during the early 1920s, the mid 1920s Monetary Crisis, the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the Scandinavian Banking Crisis of 1987–1993.
The paper first offers a description of the financial instability hypothesis applied by Minsky and Kindleberger, and in a recent dynamic financial crisis model. Financial instability is defined as a lack of financial markets and institutions that provide capital and liquidity at a sustainable level under stress. Financial instability basically evolves during times of overheating, overspending and extended credit granting. This is most common during significant booms. The process has devastating effects after markets have turned into a state of negative development.
The paper tests the validity of the financial instability hypothesis using a quantitative structural time series model. It reveals upheaval of 10 financial and macroeconomic indicators prior to all the four crises, resulting in a state of economic overheating and asset bubble creation. This is basically explained by huge growth in debts. The overheating caused the following banking crises.
Finally, the paper discusses the four crises qualitatively. Again, the conclusion is that a significant increase in money supply and debt caused overheating, asset bubbles, and thereafter, financial and banking crises, which in turn spread to other markets and industries and caused huge slumps in the real economy.

This study investigates the main factors driving the evolution of the securitization of loans to Italian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The value of securitization increased in last two years, even though it has not been used as collateral for central banks. The disposal of non-performing loans (NPLs) may have been rather triggered by increasing attention of the international institutions to such an issue, within the general purpose of financial stability. The purpose of this paper is to interpret such a phenomenon focusing on Italian banks and restricting the analysis to the case of securitizations backed with loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The interesting result that emerges, supported by econometrically tested empirical evidence, is that given the orientation of international financial institutions, such as the ECB and the EBA, and reacting to incentives coming from the fiscal policy authorities for the public guarantee of loans, banks have been using securitization to reduce the burden on their bad balance sheets due to (NPLs). It was found that the public guarantee had a positive impact on SME securitization, whereas securitization in other sectors has not been affected significantly. Such evidence suggests that, in the absence of a public guarantee, the financial stability target would have been at risk, and the effectiveness of collateral-based policies in the recent past must be improved to enhance access to credit for SMEs.

This study investigates the determinants of the profitability of U.S. banks. Employing quarterly data, this paper further examines the historical and recent trends for all U.S. banks from 1996 to 2019 in the relationship between return and assets (ROA) and other bank internal (or endogenous) profitability contributors such as net interest margin (NIM), loan loss reserves, ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans, and external (or exogenous) macroeconomic variables, such as the 30-year average mortgage rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) economic growth rate, unemployment rate, interest rate, inflation rate and openness (i.e., exports + imports/GDP) by using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator technique. The results reveal that bank-specific variables, including net interest margin, loan loss reserves and non-performing loans, have a significant impact on bank profitability in the United States. Similarly, the results show that macroeconomic variables, namely the average mortgage rate, economic growth, and unemployment rate, exert significant effects on the U.S. banks’ profitability. The results further indicate that changes in openness are detrimental to bank profitability. The implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between bank growth and the retained earnings amount for Jordanian banks between 2010 and 2020. The method to be used is regression models. Bank growth is measured using the change in total assets; income retention is measured by subtracting dividends from earnings per share and by deducting dividend per share from the operating cash flow on the accrual basis and cash basis. In addition, another specification will be used to the association between the growth of a bank’s total assets and income retention using the percentage change in the growth of a bank’s total assets and income retention on the accrual and cash basis. The findings of pooled OLS regression models and random effect models show that there is no relationship between income retention using the accrual basis and the bank total assets growth (Adj-R2 was –005). There is a significant relationship between income retention using the cash basis and the bank growth in total assets (Adj-R2 was 14%). There is no significant association between change in income retention using the cash basis and the bank growth in total assets, and bank size affects the relationship between income retention and bank growth in total assets. Users of financial statements need to be aware of the association between the several variables used in this study to make sound decisions.

This study investigated the impact of Working Capital Management (WCM) and Credit Management Policy (CMP) on the Financial Performance (FP) of Jordanian banks (JB). The study data were obtained from 16 Jordanian banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) between 2017 and 2020. The study used panel data to investigate the relationship between the two independent variables, WCM and CMP, and the dependent variable FP; 64 financial reports to Jordanian banks were analyzed to measure this relationship. To test hypotheses, multiple regression was used. The study found a statistically significant relationship between WCM and FP, and the independent variable was able to explain 34.1% of the changes that occur in the dependent variable. In addition, the outcome approved that there is a statistically significant relationship between CMP and FP. Furthermore, CMP explained about 41.8% of changes in the dependent variable. The findings of this study indicate support for the banks’ performance; a bank may need to lengthen client credit terms, prolong the cash transfer cycle, and require a more extended payment period when judging on WCM.

Acknowledgment
The publication of this research has been supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research and Graduate Studies at Philadelphia University – Jordan.