Issue #4 (Volume 12 2017)

Oil export is the major source of revenue for the countries in the Middle East. Their economies are sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices. The present study examines the impact of oil crisis on the performance of selected banks of Kingdom of Bahrain using profitability, efficiency, capital adequacy and liquidity ratios in the pre-crisis and crisis periods. The study reveals that there is no significant difference in the performance of banks in the pre-crisis and crisis period. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in the performance of conventional banks and Islamic banks in the pre-crisis period. However, there is no significant difference in the performance of conventional banks and Islamic banks during the crisis period.

The study aims to measure the extent of implementing ERP systems in the banking sector in Jordan, and identify the main factors that influence the implementation decision, in addition to measure the impact of the post-implementation of the ERP system on the financial performance. The study utilized a content analysis as a research instrument. The study of population consisted of all the banks in Jordan, where the study applied ‘Purposive Sample’ type. Therefore, the study included 11 banks from 2011 to 2016.
The study indicated that the implementation year of the ERP system started in most of the Jordanian banks in 2013, and the rates vary from bank to bank according to their importance and the level of awareness. Training courses are considered the main variable that these banks face in the process of implementation. In addition, awareness of the advantages, the cost, and supporting the infrastructure are the core factors needed to influence the implementation decision.
There is no impact when implementing an ERP system on the financial performance of the Jordanian banks in regard to the ROI and the DPS; on the other hand, there is an impact of the ERP system on the overall performance of the banks.
The study recommends to disseminate knowledge on the advantages of implementing of ERP system in Jordanian banks and to develop the IT department efficiency. Moreover, it will be worthwhile to examine the effect of ERP systems by utilizing financial and non-financial measurements.

This article is devoted to building of the equilibrium model between demand and supply on foreign currency at the Ukrainian Interbank Foreign Exchange Market (non-cash share). The authors discussed that appeared trade-offs are a product of established current foreign arrangement, administrative measures provided by the National Bank of Ukraine and range of fundamental variables, which are traditionally significant for Ukrainian economy. By means of FAVAR modeling model of demand and supply equlibrium on non-cash foreign currency was built on empirical data of Ukrainian Interbank Foreign Exchange Market, splitted into the periods, proposed by the authors. Next, it was discussed disconnection properties in the model and shown log-linearized specification of the one. The efficiency of fulfillment hypothesis on decointegrating of the fundamental variables' time series has been provided in form of critical statistics values. Also, instrument of GAP analysis of deviation from equilibrium state was proposed and the further analysis of a regulation style of monetary authority was provided. In conclusion, it was summarized that increased share of the cash out of the banks has significantly jeopardized the price stability in Ukraine and the NBU interventions would become more effective if the flexible foreign exchange rate will be accompanied with flexible regime of inflation targeting.

Global warming and climate change continue to disrupt the environment and all aspects of people’s endeavors and as such, there is need to look at causes of climate change and deploy appropriate tools to address the problem of the scourge of climate change. The bank holds a pivotal position in the economy of any country. Apart from being the custodian of money, they also collaborate with the government and international financial institutions to perform various roles that shape the direction of the world’s economy in terms of growth and development. Against the backdrop of this, this article looks at banks as part of the appropriate tools that should constantly be used to address and reduce the influence of fossil fuels that are fuelling global warming and climate change and switch to more sustainable green economy. In order to achieve this, there should be radical acceleration in advancing credit and loan facilities by banks to fund green projects and investments in order to decarbonize the economy, and at the same time maintain sustainable economic growth and development.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of market power and income diversification on the General Bank stability in Indonesia. This research uses a data sample of 20 general banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period of 2011–2014. Data analysis technique used is Multiple Linear Regression. It can be concluded simultaneously that market power and revenue diversification have significant effect on bank stability and, partially, market power has a positive and significant effect on a bank stability. Income diversification has a positive non-significant effect on bank stability.

Small business sector is considered as an important economic driver by many countries. In South Africa, small business sector has been acknowledged as the driving force to boost the economic growth and an important source of job creation. This article aims at identifying factors that are a challenge in obtaining bank finance by small businesses in South Africa.
Primary data for this study involved a survey questionnaire directed to owners of small businesses operating in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan area, Gauteng, South Africa. Factors that were deemed to influence bank loan decision were examined. The research findings revealed that factors such as age of business, business plans availability, educational background of business owner, experience of business owner and availability of a collateral have an influence on the bank loan decisions. This research also found that the accessibility of loan funding from banks was a constraint on business operations and growth. The findings of this study indicate that the mentioned factors are a challenge for small businesses in accessing bank loans to fund their operations.
The findings of this study will be of great value to small business owners and policy makers in finding solutions to address the identified barriers.

The purpose of this study is to determine the difference between three antecedent variables of performance and the impact on employee job performance through reward, compared with institutions led by men and women. The method used was survey method. Quantitative explanation method was also used to explain the relation, difference, and influence between the variables. The type of data in this research is quantitative data. The data used in this study are primary those from the respondents' perception of the variables used. The population in this study was all bank employees in Jakarta in PT Bank X Tbk, PT Bank Negara Indonesia Tbk, PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk, PT Bank Tabungan Negara and Bank BCA. The research sample consisted of employees who directly worked under female and male middle managers in the same division. The sampling method was probability sampling according to which all population units have chance to be sampled because of the population’s homogeneity. The sample was determined by simple random sampling. Sampling of male and female employees was proportion of multistage random sampling method and sampling using procedure. To solve the problems of this study Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis tool was employed using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) 5 software. The result showed that the performance of employees led by male middle managers was determined by organizational culture and employee work motivation, but transactional leadership style couldn’t influence employee performance. Female managers’ leadership style had reciprocal influence on organizational culture while male managers’ leadership style didn’t have reciprocal influence on organizational culture. Employee work motivation was influenced by male and female middle managers’ leadership style. The reward received by employees led by male and female middle managers was influenced by employee performance. The job satisfaction of employees led by male and female middle managers was determined by intrinsic and extrinsic rewards they received. Male middle managers generally applied transactional leadership style while female used transactional and transformational leadership styles. Gender difference caused differences in behaviors, mentality, and emotional characteristics which are the results of socio-cultural constructs in the society which produced differences in leadership style, behavior and work attitude.

The determinant of the credit risk of banks in a developing country have limited data to analyze and limited participation in literature. Determinants of credit risk are very important in order to define the non-performing loans (NPL) in Kosovo banking systems. Even though banking system in Kosovo is the newest in region, it is comparable with banking systems to all places in regions (Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.).
The main purpose of this paper is to classify some factors that influence credit risk in commercial banks in Kosovo. The research includes seven commercial banks for the period 2006–2015. Data analysis and interpretation are processed with Statistical Program for Social Sciences SPSS v.19.0.
The effect of variations in the determinants of credit risk exposure is based on using a multivariate panel regression model. Our empirical results suggest that a significant relationship exists between credit risk and the following variables: Profitability (ROE and ROA), Inefficiency (IE), Loans to deposit ratio (LDR), Credit growth (CG) and Deposit rate (DR), while variables of Solvency (SR) and Credit rate (CR) are not statistically significant in terms of credit risk.

Non-bank loans to corporate businesses have shown a dramatic increase compared to bank loans. Despite the increasing importance of non-bank lending, the differences between loans made by different types of lenders are mostly unknown. To uncover the distinctions, the author investigates whether bank and non-bank financial institutions deal differently with information scarcity of small firms by introducing lender-borrower distance as a proxy for information availability.
Using the National Survey of Small Business Finances (NSSBF) provided by the Federal Reserve Board, estimate the loan approval probability models after controlling for various borrower characteristics. The NSSBF data is collected by using stratified sampling to ensure sufficient numbers of observations for minority-owned firms. To circumvent potential bias due to the sampling method, the author follows the approach suggested by Wooldridge (1999) and estimates a weighted maximum likelihood estimation to adjust for sampling design.
This paper establishes novel evidence supporting the notion that banks and non-bank financial institutions are different in their ability to deal with information scarcity. Bank loan approval probability decreases as distance to their borrowers increases, while its effect on non-bank loan approval probability is statistically insignificant, supporting the notion that non-bank lending is different from bank lending in dealing with information asymmetry.

The article considers the main tendencies of financial globalization as an all-encompassing process of the world community transformation into an open integrated system of information-technological, financial-economic, socio-political, and socio-cultural interrelations and interdependencies, as well as dialectical interaction of national and global social processes. The main current trends of the Ukrainian banking system development for the period 2016–2017 were researched, which was expressed in accelerating lending to businesses and the population; a key interest rate cut by the National Bank of Ukraine, which creates positive conditions for improving the economy, reducing interest rates on deposits, increasing retail lending and portfolio growth loans to individuals. The Ukrainian banking system is gradually integrated into the international banking system and forms its development pattern in the way of integration processes, taking into account the complexities of the external financial environment.

Banking institutions spend a lot of money and use various resources to ensure both their activities’ security and their customers’ security. States and international institutions make significant efforts in this regard. But, unfortunately, this cannot always completely protect bank or client from attackers (lawbreakers). This problem is not only of technical, economic and informational character, but also legal. The article deals with issues of ensuring the criminal law protection of banking in Ukraine. Current criminal legislation of Ukraine, and draft regulations as to the holding responsible for crimes in banking sector are analyzed. The proposals as to criminalization of actions dangerous for a society in the field of banking activity are put forward: illegal obtaining of a loan; willful evasion of satisfaction of accounts payable; improper execution of the bank deposit contract terms; abuse of authority in banking; fraud with bank electronic payments.

The research paper outlines general problems of ensuring the continuity of the reproductive process in the Ukrainian economy with the help of long-term bank lending, and the problem of improving the accounting of non-performing long-term bank loans in the country was urged. The importance of solving this problem is conditioned by the significance of this group of loans in the loan portfolios of Ukrainian banks in terms of the current crisis economic situation in Ukraine. The objective of the research paper is to analyze the current state and trends in the methodology and practice of accounting of non-performing long-term bank loans in Ukraine, as well as formulate and substantiate directions for improving this methodology and practice. In the process of fulfilling the tasks of this reserch paper, the significance of the objective accounting of non-performing long-term loans of banks was substantiated; the status and changes in the accounting system of non-performing loans of Ukrainian banks were analyzed; the importance of European experience in this area was urged, which has being consistently adopted; and the scheme of allowing for changes in a share of non-performing bank loans when determining loan price was suggested. The ways to improve the accounting system of non-performing long-term loans in Ukrainian banks were suggested.

After the exposition of the Basel I Capital Accord weaknesses, the advent of the Basel II Capital Framework profoundly redefined global banking regulation and risk management practices. Many African countries had been lethargic on the migration to Basel for various reasons, amongst many being lack of skills and infrastructure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prospect of migrating from the 1988 Basel I Capital Accord to the Basel II Capital Framework and to analyze the best approach to the implementation of the new framework in Swaziland. This was a qualitative study conducted using semi-structured interview among risk managers from the four banks operated in Swaziland. The researchers also analyzed internal regulatory documents to determine their suitability and compliance to the Basel II standards. The results showed that the adoption and implementation of Basel II are a complex and resource intensive undertaking that requires strong commitment from policy decision makers. The complex models used in the later Basel capital accords have the potential to be unattainable for emerging economies, while the risk of doing business is ever increasing with exotic banking products being introduced. Background work remains the daunting outstanding undertaking that the Central Bank must get ready to do and complete timeously and efficiently. Implementation prerequisites include aligning supervision practices with the 29 Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision, revising the current legislation to address existing regulatory weaknesses and recruiting and training human resources for efficient and effective rollout.

The issue of whether money supply is a dependent or an independent variable remains a debating one, especially with the ongoing development and innovation of institutions, tools, and financial, monetary, and banking derivatives. In general, we can say that there are two trends of thought about the issue under consideration. The first trend views money supply as an exogenous variable because the monetary authority can control and monitor it. The second one views money supply as an endogenous variable because Federal Bank has no ability to affect it, especially when nominal or money income is changed and reflected on money multiplier and money supply, and also when the monetary authority cannot restrict the monetary expansion as a result of different factors related to the economy structure or related to other non-economic factors.

This study investigates the causal relationship between bank personnel ratio and the cost-income ratio based on performance in Nigeria for the period of 2004–2015. Secondary data collected on a cross section of 15 banks during this period was analyzed using panel unit root, cointegration and Granger causality techniques. A unit root test revealed that the variables are stationary at order one. The result further shows there is an equilibrium relationship or stability in the short and long run; furthermore, there is a bidirectional causal relationship between personnel ratio and cost-income ratio. Therefore, the study recommends that the apex bank should enforce policies in the banking sector that will minimize the unit cost of operation – even though they might hire more staff. This is to enhance the stability of the banks in Nigeria and to avoid any threat to their continuity.

The urgency of the issue is related to changes in the Ukrainian banks’ business environment, taking into account the impact of domestic and global financial instability and the implementation of the regulatory framework for banking regulation of the National Bank of Ukraine in accordance with the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision recommendations. The main goal of this research is to analyze the degree of implementation and compliance with the Basel III regulations in Ukrainian banking system. To carry out the research, regulatory and legislative documents of the National Bank of Ukraine, the Basel Accords, statistic data of the Ukrainian banks and the National Bank of Ukraine were used. For this purpose, the analysis of main indicators of Ukrainian banks’ financial stability within the period of 2014–2017 is made. Thus, post-crisis regulatory changes have aimed at restoring bank stability. The results seem to suggest that bank regulatory changes may be repressive, for instance, cleaning and optimization of the banking system as an effective tool for anticrisis management. As a result, it was concluded that banks with foreign capital are the most stable in the banking system of Ukraine in comparison with domestic banks.

Islamic finance presents a new avenue as a novel alternative to the conventional financial set-up in this country. The purpose of this study is to find out the prospects of Islamic banking in India. The objectives of this study have been met by conducting a survey to elicit the responses from retail customers of both private and public sector banks in four cities of South India. The survey was carried out among both Muslims and non-Muslims to find out about the awareness levels, patronage, motivation and perception towards Islamic banking in India. The results reveal that the respondents have a favorable perception towards Islamic banking, especially from the city of Hyderabad, since it has got a lot of institutions that run courses on Islamic banking.
In the current study, it is found that Islamic banking is having low level of awareness among the respondents. However, the attitude towards adoption of Islamic Banking seems encouraging, as reflected in the study. The findings of this research gain significance due to the fact that this sample represents a segment of the entire population of South India and thus, acts as a pre-cursor to a detailed study involving various other such demographic denominations. The future directions for this research could be carried out by drawing such clusters across the rest of the country. This may help to understand and get a better and broader perspective of the need for Islamic banking and hence, its prospects in India.

The article is devoted to the Ukrainian monetary policy in the period of post-crisis structural reformation. Overcoming consequences of the deepest in Ukraine’s new history economic, social and political crisis become a starting point for modernization of the whole administration system and policy provided. In that period, monetary policy has been changed significantly. It was provoked by necessity for state regulator to respond to act on complex of unexpected challenges. Main features of monetary policy in 2013–2016 (active regulation, stabilization and maintaining proper equilibrium in the economic system; implementation of IMF program; gradual intensification of administrative measures; inflation targeting; influencing the regime of floating exchange rate; prices stabilization; focusing on equilibrium in the balance of payments; mobilization operations restraining; growth of the monetary base; monetary policy measures have generally been a response to fiscal policy and geopolitical policy of Ukraine) are highlighted.

The challenges of revenue generation by banks are evident if one considers the accusations labelled against the banks of aggressive lending (Archaya & Naqvi, 2012), which basically centers on the pursuit of profits with minimum regard to risk management. If not read or if read in passing, loan terms can be used to destroy the reputation of banks when accusations of predatory loans surface. It is argued here that even if understood at the time of signing the acceptance of the loan, there is no guarantee that the terms are still top of mind of borrowers, especially those who borrow for a long term. Banks can use their advisory skills to periodically take borrowers through loan terms, confirm understanding, detect any wanton behaviors (WB) from borrowers’ financial activities that go against financial astuteness and may jeopardize repayment capabilities and offer advice on practices that are not counter to repayment capabilities. Banks can mitigate the challenges in interest income generation, particularly from a default point of view by periodically engaging borrowers to specifically advice on behavioral issues that manifest themselves in financial levers. Since borrowers stand to gain immeasurable value out of these engagements, banks can justifiably levy borrower advisory service fees (BASF) and wanton hazard fee (WHF). The authors show, through the application of the BASF and WHF, the potential income banks can generate. Using the BASF and WHF as sources of non-interest income, the potential benefit taking into account the credit loss as a function of BASF accruing to the bank is established.

The article highlights the necessity of ensuring the interests of the state, commercial banks and internally displaced persons. The analysis of the scientific literature has shown that there is no the problem of this kind in the European countries. So wide “hybrid warfare” in the world history is being waged on the territory of Ukraine. The world has not encountered similar problems. The extensive research of the scientific literature has shown that Ukrainian scientists attempted to solve the problems of bank management, the market of deposit services, the relations of commercial banks with the National Bank of Ukraine, the management of banking system and risks, etc. The relations of three participants (internally displaced persons, commercial banks and the National Bank of Ukraine) in the deposit market of Ukraine have not been under study yet. This paper explores the ways in which it is possible to combine the interests of the state, internally displaced persons and banks and find new sources of banks’ credit resources. The methodological approach taken in this study is a mixed methodology based on dialectical method, formal-and-logical method, logical-and-juridical method and methods of analysis, synthesis, and comparison. The uniqueness of the problem for the economy and social sector of the European countries is determined; the ways of the state support of citizens-investors in their economy and national banks are explored and some important changes in the Ukrainian legislation are studied.

The stability of economies all over the world over is largely a function of inflation and interest rates. Over the past two decades, Swaziland’s economy experienced increasing inflation and interest rates with the blame leveled against the absolute Monarchy’s inability to manage the economy. In particular, the period of 2010 to 2014 was the hardest hit because of increasing poverty levels. The purpose of the study was therefore to assess the relationship between inflation and interest rates in the context of Swaziland with a view to constructing fiscal and monetary policies capable of driving an efficient economy going forward. The study employed a confirmatory and quantitative approach based on a review of secondary data over the period. The source and description of data included quarterly based data within the 2010–2014 period comprising information on interest rate, gross domestic product and inflation figures from the Central Bank of Swaziland, the national library, and the Central Statistical Department of Swaziland. A descriptive approach, using Microsoft excel, was used to analyze the data. The study findings showed that there was positive relationship between interest rates and inflation. Recommendations were that, Swaziland could craft appropriate fiscal and monetary policies towards controlling the prevailing economic challenges despite the peculiar socio-political nature where the absolute Monarchy holds executive authority and accountability.