Issue #1 (Volume 17 2022)

This paper examines the macro-economic and bank-specific factors affecting non-performing loans in commercial banks. Using 47 listed commercial banks from six countries, namely 19 banks from Nigeria, 14 banks from Benin, 3 banks from Burkina Faso, 3 banks from Gambia, 3 banks from Guinea, and 5 banks from Liberia for the period 2008 to 2019, fixed and random effect model was used. The Hausman test favored the selection of fixed effect model, and it was found from the estimation that the liquidity ratio, capital adequacy ratio and inflation rate significantly affect non-performing loans. As a result, it is advised that banks depend not only on their ability to achieve the capital adequacy ratio, but also guarantee that loans are thoroughly scrutinized before being issued to beneficiaries. Bank managers should guarantee that banking staff is not simply awarding loans to secure their jobs by accumulating deposits from consumers at the price of the bank’s long-term stake. In addition, the economies of West Africa should keep their inflation rates low so that repayment of loans on time is cheap and realistic.

Acknowledgment
I would like to appreciate Fezile Nonjabulo Gcwabaza for love and support throughout this research project.

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.

There is a dearth of longitudinal studies of corporate social responsibility expenditure (CSRE) and corporate governance in Bangladesh, which has been the impetus for this study. The study aims to identify the relationship between ownership structure and CSR expenditure. The empirical study considered a longitudinal period of 2007–2019 of listed financial firms (banks and non-banking financial institutions) of Bangladesh. The final sample consisted of 461 firm-year observations for 53 firms. The study incorporated a set of theories, including agency cost theory and stakeholder theory. The study applied the ordinary least square (OLS) regression technique to test hypotheses. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that foreign ownership and managerial ownership contribute positively and significantly to CSRE. However, the study did not document any relationship between institutional ownership and CSRE. The study used rigorous and alternative measurement techniques to further verify the findings. It was concluded that value creation from CSRE is highly dependent on the ownership structure of financial firms. The empirical study has significant theoretical and managerial implications.

Acknowledgment
Comments and suggestions from the discussants and paper presenters and audiences of International Conference on Sustainable Innovation (ICoSI 2020) at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia, have been gratefully acknowledged, which helps us to improve the quality of this paper.

In Indonesia financial inclusion remains a challenge. This study looked at how the human development index, gross domestic product, and the number of offices of banks affect the financial index in 34 Indonesian provinces for composite, conventional, and sharia banking. This study uses panel data from 2016 to 2019 to address research questions. According to the findings of this study, economic growth, human development index, regional gross domestic product per capita, and bank brances significantly influence the financial inclusion index of the composite banking. Meanwhile, economic growth, human development index, gross domestic product per capita, and the number of bank branches impact the financial inclusion index of conventional banking. However, the financial inclusion index for sharia banking shows that only economic growth variables, regional gross domestic product per capita, and the number of sharia bank branches have a significant influence. The human development index variable does not have a significant influence. Based on these findings, the Financial Service Authority (OJK) and Bank Indonesia must promote a conducive climate for increasing the financial inclusion of banking in Indonesia for both conventional and Islamic banks.

Nowadays, there are many preconditions and circumstances for conducting shadow schemes in the financial market. Therefore, the level of risk of participation of bank and non-bank financial intermediaries in such schemes is assessed as high. The lack of a practical methodology for assessing the development trajectory of financial intermediaries raises the question of the need for preventive control and quality modeling of their growth dynamics. The study aims to identify and formalize the patterns of development paths of banking and non-banking financial intermediaries based on the Harrington desirability function, which will be used to identify risk patterns as indicative patterns of financial intermediaries’ participation in shadow schemes. The sample includes 13 banking institutions, 3 credit unions, 3 pawnshops, 3 insurance companies, and 3 financial companies. The obtained results showed the relationship between the financial intermediary risk level in terms of its participation in shadow schemes and the phases of the economic cycle as a catalyst for the economic dynamics of the formal and informal economy. Thus, in 2012–2015, most financial intermediaries were in the zone of most significant risk, especially banks, characterized by economic, social, and political instability. Today, banks are in the group with a controlled level of risk of participation in scheme operations. Over the years analyzed, a stable neutral level of risk of participation in shadow schemes was inherent in most non-bank financial institutions. They were less sensitive than banks to the phases of the economic cycle.

Acknowledgment
Alina Bukhtiarova and Yevgeniya Mordan gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (0120U100473, 0121U100469).

This study is aimed at evaluating the correlation between determinants of non-cash payments (ATMs, number of bank branches, and number of mobile phone users) and various economic indicators (broad money, inflation, consumer prices) as well as further studying which of the factors and to what extent influence each other in different periods. Non-cash payments are provided by ATMs. The sample considers panel data on nine developing countries. The data for calculation were taken from The World Bank, for Kazakhstan – from the Bureau of National Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The data collected during the study were analyzed using the SPSS software. Spearman’s correlation analysis was used. The results obtained in the empirical study briefly showed that the alternative hypothesis is confirmed for the period 2004–2009 (that the existing relationships are significant), at the same time, the null hypothesis was confirmed in terms of the level of significance for the period 2019–2020. Accordingly, this study showed that modern developments differ from those provided earlier and financial technology transformation is still in the process. The results of this study also indicated the need for further studies of non-traditional measures of financial development, which can lead to sustainable economic growth in the post-crisis period.

Acknowledgments
The study was carried out within the framework of program targeted IRN OR11465433 funding by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan “Development of the concept and mechanisms of balanced territorial development of the economy and society of Kazakhstan”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the operating environment for banks around the world. Determining the drivers of digitalization of banking services based on the principles of corporate social responsibility of banks makes it possible to find a way out of the crisis. The objective of the study is to develop a model for clustering banks in terms of the level of digitalization on the principles of corporate social responsibility.
In this study, a twofold model has been proposed: the first part includes the calculation of the level of digitalization of banking, and the second part includes mathematical simulation of the clustering of bank digitalization level. This study reveals new possible solutions to the digitalization of banking in the face of new threats. In particular, factor analysis identifies the main factors, cluster analysis ranks banks into three categories (A, B, C) of service digitalization, and a dendrogram identifies digitalization drivers. The model was tested on 22 banks. Eight per cent of the banks are rated A “Very good” and B “Good”. 92% have Level C “Satisfactory”. The results of the study prove that the model should be validated. It should be confirmed that the application of the developed methodology for increasing the digitalization of banking services will increase customer loyalty by 15%, improve sustainability by reducing risk by 10%, and make banks attractive for investment by 15-20%.

Profitability is a matter of concern for all economic organizations, including banks. The economic problem always poses for banks in maintaining growth and ensuring sustainable stability. Liquidity is always a concern of banks in maintaining profitability. The article aims to test the relationship between liquidity and profitability of Vietnamese listed banks. Data include 18 Vietnamese listed commercial banks for a period of 9 years from 2011 to 2019. The article uses the time series method with the ordinary least square. The results show that liquidity has a positive relationship with the profitability of listed banks including return on assets, return on equity, and net interest margin. As for net interest margin, the liquidity ratio of loans to deposit plus short-term borrowings and short-term bills payable has the opposite effect. To contribute to the stable and sustainable growth of the banking system, the article proposes the policies for the Vietnamese banking system by fully implementing the regulations on liquidity based on the Bank for International Settlements and should forecast the financial developments in the region and the world to have flexible responses to avoid uncertainties, as well as the need to form and maintain funds to timely support for liquidity in the entire banking system.

This paper aims to determine the effect of central bank monetary policy on financial asset prices in Indonesia from 1990 Q1 to 2020 Q4. Furthermore, this study measures the responses of three different asset prices: bond yield, stock price and exchange rate to central bank rate shocks using the structural vector autoregression model. The impulse response functions showed that tightening monetary policy in Indonesia appreciated the exchange rate in four periods, lowered stock prices in five periods, and increased bond yield in all periods. These results imply that an increase in monetary policy interest rate appreciates exchange rate, lowers the stock price, and reduces bond yield. The result of variance decomposition showed that the most dominant central bank rate prediction was in predicting forecast error variance of bond yield but the smallest in predicting forecast error variance of the exchange rate. These results corroborated the hypothesis that tightening monetary policy in Indonesia increases financial asset prices. It also highlighted the informational role of monetary policy interest rate in stabilizing financial asset prices.

The study aims to determine the impact of Capital Adequacy Ratio, Credit Losses Ratio and Efficiency Ratio on the two significant profitability ratios, namely Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE), during the pandemic. Panel Data Regression is used to model the effects of Capital Adequacy, Credit Losses and Efficiency Ratio on Return on Assets and Return on Equity of Indian banks. A suitable model has been developed by analyzing the results of the Hausman test and the p-values. It has been found that Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) with coefficient value of –0.664, CET1 with coefficient value of 1.83 and efficiency ratio with coefficient value of 1.825 have significantly affected the return on assets as their p-values are less than 0.05. However, the accepted relationship between CAR and ROA, efficiency ratio and ROA were inverse, but their coefficients were significant. The provision for credit losses (PCL) was not affecting the ROA significantly during the pandemic and hence was not considered while framing the model. Again, the dependent variable is the return on equity, except CAR. Other ratios, i.e., CET1, efficiency ratio, and PCL ratio have unacceptable correlations and are even non-significant as their p-values are less than 0.05.

E-commerce and e-business are necessary components of today’s internet banking due to the developing global economy. Alternatively, in this technological era, the banking sector’s success is associated with creating bank users’ intention to adopt internet banking services. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the influencing factors of intention to adopt internet banking services of commercial bank users’ in the Bangladeshi context. A survey questionnaire was formulated based on past works of literature to find out the research objective. The convenience sampling method has been used in this study. For the data collection purpose, 250 bank users were asked request to participate in the research. As a fully completed survey, 180 responses were received where the response rate was 72% and the sample size was n = 180. For correlation analysis and hypotheses testing, SPSS version 26.0 was used. The results of the study show that Perceived Security Risk (PSR), Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEU), Social Influence (SI), and Consumer Innovativeness (CI) have a statistical and significant impact on the intention to adopt internet banking services. It is concluded that the bank management committee should utilize PU, PEU, SI, and CI to amplify the level of willingness to adopt and embrace general banking services through internet platforms among bank users in their online banking transactions. For the future research study, this paper outlines several significant implications and offers some directions for the bank management committee of a commercial bank.

A dearth of studies linking risk-taking with maqasid shariah-based performance has been the motivation for analyzing this relationship. This study also examines the moderating effect of shariah governance. The study uses time-series data with the dynamic panel technique to examine the relationship between variables. The number of samples in this study was 75 Islamic banks operating non-window banking from 19 countries. Results prove that risk-taking has a significant adverse effect on the performance of Islamic banks. Lower risk-taking indicates a bank is more efficient, resulting in higher maqashid shariah-based performance. The governance has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between risk-taking and the performance of Islamic banks. Increasingly quality SSB strengthens the risk-taking relationship with maqashid shariah-based performance. This study implies that Islamic banks with quality SSB will be more efficient in managing risk to increase performance that complies with maqashid shariah criteria in the long term. This study concludes that managers must improve risk management in the distribution of funds so that Islamic banks are more efficient. Furthermore, policy-making authorities in each country must support the policy on the existence of SSB and the composition of the background so that it is of higher quality.

2004–2020. The study was conducted in the context that Vietnam’s trade openness is increasing, causing significant challenges in macro management, including exchange rate management. The authors use vector autoregression model and Granger causality test to test this relationship. The study used a vector autoregression model and Granger causality test to investigate the causal relationship between trade openness and real effective exchange rate volatility in Vietnam over the period 2004–2020. The study was conducted in the context of Vietnam’s trade openness index rising, causing significant challenges in macro management, including exchange rate management. The study takes a new approach (i) using Vietnam’s real effective exchange rate relative to 143 trading partners; and (ii) examining the impact of economic growth on trade openness and exchange rate volatility. The research results indicate that trade openness has a two-way Granger causality with effective real exchange rate volatility in Vietnam at the 1% significance level. Specifically, the effect of trade openness on real exchange rate volatility is positive at a 1-period lag and 4-period lag. Meanwhile, real exchange rate fluctuations have a negative effect on trade openness with a 1-period lag. At the same time, the study also finds that increased economic growth reduces real effective exchange rate volatility and increases Vietnam’s trade openness. On that basis, the study proposes implications for the management of trade openness and exchange rate management in the current Vietnamese context.

Predicting the creditworthiness of bank customers is a major concern for banking institutions, as modeling the probability of default is a key focus of the Basel regulations. Practitioners propose different default modeling techniques such as linear discriminant analysis, logistic regression, Bayesian approach, and artificial intelligence techniques. The performance of the default prediction is evaluated by the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve using three types of kernels, namely, the polynomial kernel, the linear kernel and the Gaussian kernel. To justify the performance of the model, the study compares the prediction of default by the support vector with the logistic regression using data from a portfolio of particular bank customers. The results of this study showed that the model based on the Support Vector Machine approach with the Radial Basis Function kernel, performs better in prediction, compared to the logistic regression model, with a value of the ROC curve equal to 98%, against 71.7% for the logistic regression model. Also, this paper presents the conception of a support vector machine-based rating tool designed to classify bank customers and determine their probability of default. This probability has been computed empirically and represents the proportion of defaulting customers in each class.

Work-life balance is a common topic that has been brought up along with human necessity to maintain life balance, as employees currently have some considerations related to their high productivity at work. High self-efficacy is one thing that employees should have in order to stay in their workplace. Banks are among businesses that have fierce competition with regard to quality and customer service as well as employee management. This is the reason why this study was conducted in an Indonesian government-owned bank as the problem of employee turnover is considered relatively serious in order to get more benefits in one’s working life. This study aims to analyze the relationship between self-efficacy and work-life balance on employee engagement. The sample comprised 280 employees, and data analysis used was SEM PLS. The results showed that self-efficacy had 75% and work life balance had a 79% effect on employee engagement, which were proved by the fact that employees are professionally responsible for their duties at work without neglecting their family responsibilities. With such results, banks should consider reconstructing their employee management, since salary is no longer the top priority for employees to work but they also consider life balance. Employees need to spend their time with their families while remaining on their track in work productivity. They also need appreciation, recognition and pride to keep their self-efficacy in their work performance.

This paper observes the dynamic impact of market risks on the profitability of banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) from 2010 to 2018 in Jordan. To identify the link, the relevant data were retrieved from the annual statements of Jordanian banks and one-step Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach was employed to diagnose the error regarding endogeneity. The results of the applied methodology showed that market risks impacted the profitability of Jordanian banks. Furthermore, the study also presented factors that affected the banks’ profitability, such as capitalization and bank size. The previous year profitability has a positive effect on the next year profitability. Moreover, stock market returns (SMRs) directly affect ROA and ROE because when SMRs enhances, bank profitability will increase. Bank managers should ponder the volatility of the market risk while enhancing the profitability of a bank. This relationship of the variables regarding Jordanian banks listed on the ASE was not considered before in the financial economics literature. Recommendations were also provided for Jordanian bank managers to mitigate market risks.

The world’s economic growth has decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many companies are experiencing financial distress, so they cannot pay off their maturing debts. Banks as lenders face the risk of non-performing loans. The increasing number of unpaid loans will reduce a bank’s operating income and gain. The contingency approach is used as a conditional factor that can increase the effectiveness of firm performance. The relevance of this study is how banking strategies overcome the problem of uncertainty regarding risk and return during a pandemic. Contingency theory describes organizational success as influenced by contextual factors and established strategies. The purpose of this study is to systematically review the literature related to loan restructuring as a solution to non-performing loans in banking companies in Indonesia. The research method is a review of 40 articles from Scopus and a descriptive analysis of company financial statement notes to see what strategies banks are using during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on contingency theory, the results of the study explain organizational success which is influenced by contextual factors and the established strategy. The more appropriate the strategy chosen in a given situation, the higher the achievement of organizational performance. A qualitative analysis provides a solution for a bank to overcome the problem of unpaid loans at maturity through a restructuring model strategy with modified loan terms.