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The purpose of this study is to explore how the unprecedented rise in the economic policy uncertainty influence Indian banking sector stability. The unprecedented rise in the economic policy uncertainty during the recent pandemic has garnered the attention of policymakers to investigate its consequences on different sectors of the economy.

In this quest, the present study uses system generalized method of moments and other econometric tools to examine the influence of economic policy uncertainty on the Indian banking sector, covering the time frame from 2000 to 2022. In addition, the current study also investigates the mediating role of regulation and supervision in the nexus of economic policy uncertainty and the Indian banking sector stability.

The empirical outcome reveals that economic policy uncertainty negatively influences banking stability. However, when economic policy uncertainty interacts with stringent banking regulations, private monitoring and supervisions, it assists in diversifying the negative impact of economic policy uncertainty on the Indian banking sector stability.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the study is an original work and provides robust estimates that will assist policymakers in understanding the influence of policy uncertainty on the banking stability. Moreover, the study also helps in understanding the role of supervision and regulation in mitigating the negative consequences of policy uncertainty on the banking stability.

Empirical research on the relationship between financial inclusion and economic growth has neglected the influence of religion or secularism. This study aims to investigate the effect of financial inclusion on economic growth in religious and secular countries.

The financial inclusion indicators are the number of automated teller machines (ATMs)per 100,000 adults and the number of bank branches per 100,000 adults. These two indicators are the accessibility dimension of financial inclusion based on physical points of service. The two-stage least square (2SLS) regression method was used to analyze the effect of financial inclusion on real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth and real GDP growth in religious and secular countries.

Bank branch contraction significantly increases economic growth in secular countries. Bank branch expansion combined with greater internet usage increases economic growth in secular countries while high ATM supply combined with greater internet usage decreases economic growth in secular countries. This study also finds that bank branch expansion, in the midst of a widening poverty gap, significantly increases economic growth in religious countries, implying that financial inclusion through bank branch expansion is effective in promoting economic growth in poor religious countries. It was also found that internet usage is a strong determinant of economic growth in secular countries.

Few studies in the literature examined the effect of financial inclusion on economic growth. But the literature has not examined how financial inclusion affects economic growth in religious and secular countries.

Purpose: The advent of the fintech revolution has brought a tremendous increase in the dissemination of digital financial services. Although digital financial services increase financial inclusion through financial intermediation, it also increases the chances of systematic risk.

Need: In the quest to satisfy the curious minds, the authors have examined the influence of digital financial services on banking stability and efficiency.

Methodology: To achieve the above objectives, the authors have used the Auto-Regressive Distribution Lag (ARDL) estimation technique on the annual data set of India and the United States from 2004 to 2018. In addition, to estimate the long-run cointegration, the ARDL bound approach is also used.

Findings: The empirical analysis concludes that in the short run, the expansion of digital financial services in India in the form of internet-based transactions and mobile money transactions creates a negative and significant impact on banking efficiency and stability. Meaning, banking sector efficiency and stability fall by 0.09% and 0.05% with a 1% increase in digital financial services. However, in the long run, digital financial services enhance banking stability and efficiency in India. Besides, the study also reveals that in a developed country like the United States, both in the short run and long run, expansion of digital financial services helps in improving banking efficiency and stability. Furthermore, in context to control variables, the findings suggest that in the short run, industrial productivity has a negative influence on the Indian banking sector efficiency and stability, compared to the positive impact in the long run. This is unlike the United States, where both in the long-run and short-run, industrial productivity has a positive influence on the banking sector’s efficiency and stability.

Practical implication: The findings reveal several policy implications and suggest policy synergies between digital financial services, banking stability and efficiency.

Purpose: The main purpose of this chapter is to thoroughly investigate the diverse literature available concerning nonperforming loans (NPLs) and its determinants by studying and analyzing the empirical studies from 1985 to 2019.

Design/Methodology: A qualitative approach is being incorporated, and by using content analysis, various previous studies are reviewed and important issues like the objectives, methodology, key findings, and variables are reported.

Findings: The study tries to compile the main findings from the various studies done concerning NPLs and its determinants. The study shows how various determinants both bank-specific and macroeconomic affect the banking structure and thus the NPLs, in different countries and at different periods of time. The study also highlights how countries’ banking structure got affected by various economic phenomena like recession, contagious effect of the financial crisis, banking Basel norms, and NPL management strategies. Further major issues like data acquisition, lack of data reporting, countries specific banking conditions, methodologies used in the analysis, scarce resources, and disclosure hindrance which are faced by previous studies were also reported.

Originality/Value: As there are very few studies that provide a detailed viewpoint on NPLs and its determinants in this area, this research will provide a concise and detailed framework for the researchers to analyses the diverse literature on NPLs and its determinates.

The objective of this chapter is to study the symmetric and asymmetric impact of macroeconomic variables on the Indian stock prices (SPs) of the Bombay Stock Exchange index. This chapter further investigates whether the asymmetric impact of macroeconomic variables on SP is due to the impact of any tail events like the global financial recession. An autoregressive distribution lag and non-autoregressive distribution lag approach is used for the full sample covering the period from January 2000 to June 2019 and later this sample is further subdivided into before and after the crisis period to study the variations in result. The findings show that macroeconomic variables and SP have a symmetric relation in the long run whereas an asymmetric relationship in the short run when the whole sample is analyzed. However when data are segregated into “before and after” crisis period this relationship turns to be asymmetric in long run too, meaning that in the long run, the negative and positive changes in a macroeconomic variable do not affect SPs similarly.