The impact of digital investment, cost efficiency, and risk profile on bank stability: Evidence from Jordanian banks
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DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.21511/bbs.21(3).2026.11
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Article InfoVolume 21 2026, Issue #3, pp. 163-175
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Type of the article: Research Article
Abstract
The digitalization of banking operations and resource allocation has opened up possibilities to enhance financial resilience but has also raised operating cost and performance volatility challenges. This study aims to investigate the relationship between digital investment, operating efficiency, operating income volatility, and bank stability for Jordanian listed banks. The secondary data included audited annual reports and financial statements of 15 banks, with an equal number of banks from the Amman Stock Exchange for the period 2014–2024, resulting in a balanced panel of 165 bank-year observations. The pooled OLS, fixed-effects, and random-effects models were first estimated, and then the best model was selected using the cross-section F-test, Breusch–Pagan LM test, and Hausman specification test. This result bolsters the fixed-effects estimator, and the final model includes bank and year effects and uses bank-clustered robust standard errors. Digital investment intensity is positively and significantly related to bank stability (coefficient = 0.284, p = 0.004). By contrast, operating-income volatility has a negative association with bank stability (coefficient = –0.198, p = 0.031), and the cost-to-income ratio also has a significant negative association with bank stability (coefficient = –0.246, p = 0.005). The stability coefficient is negative and significant (–0.121, p = 0.049) regarding bank size. The between-bank variation is about 11% of the total, and the fixed-effects model accounts for about 51% of this variation. The results show that investment in technology, operating efficiency, and the management of volatility in operating performance are closely linked to bank stability in Jordan.
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JEL Classification (Paper profile tab)G21, G28, G32
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References37
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Tables5
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Figures0
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- Table 1. Descriptive statistics
- Table 2. Panel-model selection and diagnostic tests
- Table 3. Fixed-effects regression results for bank stability
- Table 4. Hypotheses testing results
- Table A1. Banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange
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