UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS ERASMUS UNVERSITY ROTTERDAM HO CHI MINH CITY INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM – THE NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS COMPETITION AND BANK STABILITY IN ASEAN COUNTRIES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS BY Ms. VU THI QUYNH MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY, Nov 2017 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS COMPETITON AND BANK STABILITY IN ASEAN COUNTRIES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By Ms. VU THI QUYNH Academic Supervisor: Dr. NGUYEN THI THUY LINH HO CHI MINH CITY, Nov 2017 Declaration ―I certify the content of this dissertation has not already been submitted for any degree and is not being currently submitted to any other degrees.
I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, any assistance received in preparing this dissertation and all source used, have been recorded in this dissertation.‖ Signature Vu Thi Quynh Date: Nov 1st, 2017 iii Acknowledgement Foremost, I would sincerely thank Dr. Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, my supervisor, for her great support and advice in my thesis. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Vietnam –Netherlands Program, especially professor Truong Dang Thuy and staffs for their great assistance in this thesis. I also thank all my friends who always stand by my side with encouragement.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family for supporting not only in this thesis but also in my life. iv Abstract Investigating the relationship between competition and bank stability has been at center of academic and policy issues, intensifying after occurrence of system banking crises over the last three decades. The global trend towards consolidation in the financial industry, the banking sector in the ASEAN region experienced a dramatic shift from deregulation to regulation based on the experience of 1997 Asian Financial crisis. Hence, this study examines the impact on bank stability of competition in ASEAN market by taking into account crisis periods.
Using unbalanced dataset from more 200 commercial banks across 7 ASEAN countries over the period from 1995 to 2015, this study provides empirical evidence supporting the competition point of view that a non-linear or U- shaped nexus between competition and bank stability. Banks were found to be highly volatile and lost capitalization during the 1997 Asian crisis, whereas the 2007-2008 global financial crisis stage did not directly affect Asian banks. Besides, smaller banks in this region were more competitive than large banks over same period and they may contribute to improve financial soundness. On the other hands, the findings also provide some recommendations for policymakers in ASEAN economics.
Key words: Competition, Stability, Market power, Concentration, Fragility. v CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Introduction. Scope of the study. Research objectives and research questions.
Contributions and implications. Limitations and structure of the thesis. 6 CHAPTER 2: Literature review. Bank stability and competition.
The efficiency–stability debate. The concentration–contestability debate. Moral hazard and adverse selection problem. Main arguments about relationship between competition and bank stability.
The traditional competition-instability view. The modern competition-stability view. Competition and bank stability. Effect of financial crises on the competition and bank stability relationship.
Specific regression equations. Description of the variables. Non-performing loan ratio. Measures of bank competition.
The Panzar-Rosse H-statistic: Non-Structural approach. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI): Structural approach. Other control variables. The bank specific indicators.
Macro-economic indicators. Estimation method: Two-stage Least Square (2SLS). 41 CHAPTER 4: Empirical analysis. Descriptive statistics and correlation structure.
Competition and stability in ASEAN banks. Characteristics of ASEAN banks. Cross-country differences in bank regulatory policies. Competition and bank stability.
The variable correlation. The first-stage regression. Results and discussion. The effect competition on stability.
The impact of Asian crisis and global financial crisis on competition and bank stability relationship. The effect of Market Entry Conditions and Bank regulatory factor. Bank-level and country-level factors on competition-stability nexus. Limitations and suggestions for further research.
75 vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table-1: Summary some previous studies. 20 Table-2: Summary of the variables used in the analysis. 24 Table-3: ASEAN and country wise descriptive statistic of the variables. 45 Table-4: Yearly average of H-statistic, Lerner index, HHI based on loan and CR3 based on loan for ASEAN-5 during 1990-2014.
46 Table-5: Pearson pair wise correlation matrix of independent variables used in the analysis. 50 Table-6: Variance Inflation Factor (VIF). 50 Table-7: The first-stage regression between instrumental variables and Z-score as a measure bank competition. 51 Table-8: The comparison between FEM, REM and Pooled model.
The P-value shows the significant level at 1% and 5%. The effect of competition measured by H-statistic, Lerner index and HHI on Z- score and equity ratio as measure of bank stability in ASEAN from 1995-2015. 55 Table-9b: The effect of competition measured by H-statistic, Lerner index and HHI on NPL ratio as a measure of bank stability in ASEAN from 1995-2015. 58 Table-10: The combined effect of bank competition and crises.
61 Table-11: Summary findings. 65 Fig 1: Log of Z-score, H statistic and Lerner index of ASEAN during 1995-2015. 48 Fig 2: The correlation between LnZ-score, NPL ratio and Capital ratio of ASEAN banks from 1995-2015. 49 Fig 3: ASEAN and other regions – Z-score and Concentration index.
76 viii CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1. Problem statement The impact of competition on bank stability has been an issue of active disputation in both academic and policy circles for over three decades and especially since 1997-1998 Asian and the 2007-2008 global financial crises. This debate was intensified by the deregulation of branches and activity restrictions in the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s, lead to the international process of banking liberalization in both matured and emerging economies. This makes more competition in the banking sector which large banks from advanced countries operating at low profit margin penetrate in developing countries with relatively high profit margin.
Meanwhile, some economists stated that these deregulation also positively impact on financial depth (Rice & Strahan, 2010), growth (Cetorelli & Gambera, 2001), income distribution (Beth at al., 2010b) and efficiency (Bertrand et al., 2007), and then led to the belief that the bank's fierce competition will promote a more efficient banking system. Accordingly, competition is also seen as a pre-condition of efficient, innovative and developed financial system (Demirguc-Kunt & Peria, 2010; Weill, 2013; Apergis, Fafaliou, & Polemis, 2016). Unfortunately, there is a fact that, coupled with more competition through financial liberalization is the emergence of systemic banking crises in the last two decades of the 20th century and leading regulatory failures to bring the banking system in discipline have raised concerns among policy makers and academics regarding the subsequent effect of competition on bank stability in the banking system. Consequently, the concern about the extent to which competition is responsible for these crises is still no consensus as to whether high or low competition leads to bank stability in the banking system.
In terms of banking sector in emerging countries, competition has been increasing due to the trend of penetration into the banking market of large foreign banks from advanced countries. This prompted domestic banks to accelerate the consolidation process to protect their market power, leading to the appearance of "too big to fail" banks and the moral hazard incentives are more likely to exploit government aid (Berger & Mester, 2003). 1 Furthermore, businesses depend significantly on banks for external funding to secure their operations (Adam, 2008). As a consequence, bank stability is a major concern for policy marker in the formulation of important policies.
In recent decades the relationship between competition and bank stability has been researched empirically focusing on both developed and developing nations. Nevertheless, the findings of those studies ended up with conflicting experimental results keeping this link still a puzzle. In addition, in order to resolve the consolidation logically, regulators need to consider how it could affect their overall goal of the financial system, which is to maximize social welfare. This study assesses again this relationship, or further effect of competition on financial crisis on the competition-stability nexus that may be impaired by crisis.
Crisis may lead the banking sector to adopt divergent reform strategies, such as capital regulation, activity restriction, and consolidation which may change the market power or competition and risk taking behavior of the banks. Scope of the study Understand how competition can form the incentives of the credit institutions for risk taking is essential for a stable and efficient banking system that can finance timely profitable investment opportunities and remain sustainable economic growth. By the above importance roles, few researches have focused on the impact of competition on the stability of banking system in the ASEAN context. This study also contributes to the full implementation of this gap by using samples of 226 commercial banks from 7 countries of ASEAN1 area.
These countries include Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. In terms of this study‘s territorial scope, the ASEAN region has seen an attractive sample providing a fertile laboratory to analyze this relationship, because its banking industry has been experienced liberalization via foreign bank penetration in early 1990s, followed by deregulation, regional economic integration, and tremendous consolidation in late 1990s as port 1997-98 Asian financial crisis strategies. Specifically, the banking sector in this area has been sequentially and significantly affected from the Asian crisis in 1 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a regional organization comprising ten Southeast Asian nations that promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic integration amongst its members. Since its formation on August 8, 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, membership has expanded to include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
2 1997, severer than any other emerging areas. Indonesia, Thailand has been countries being affected the most (1998-1999, NPLs ratio from 33% to nearly 50% (World Bank)). Malaysia, Laos and the Philippines have experienced a sudden price collapse, while Singapore and Vietnam are almost unaffected. In global financial crisis, this region was also influenced due to most of the economy here where this export-oriented and highly dependent on international trade and foreign investment.
Southeast Asia region exhibited that the degree of vulnerability depends on openness to international capital flows, on the business model for banks funding and access to the real estate sector. In the short run, the export sector, the stock market and the money markets, banking and financial services are strongly affected by the global financial crisis. The freezing of the financial system in developed countries has led to the reduction or narrowing of a series of activities in manufacturing, business or personal consumption as well as the belief of the people in decline. Besides, in the process of deregulation to deregulation, many policy makers are also imposing market entry restrictions and bank regulation and supervision.
Hence, the banking sector has been strong entry barriers to the activities and the limited import allowances. In some countries, it is dominated by the intermediate state, which would benefit from assistance in case of distress. Barriers to the emergence of banks in origin countries to increase after the government stopped licensing new bank established from September 8, 2008 (Vietnam). In addition to the provisions of its charter capital, as the number of years required to continuously be profitable, the new bank established under the close monitoring of the State Bank.
In addition, the barriers to entry banking sectors are also reflected through market segment, the target market that banks are targeting, brand value and customer base, customer loyalty that bank customers have built for such barriers, the bank market is mainly national.