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This study investigates the role of market concentration and efficiency in banking system stability during the COVID-19 pandemic. We empirically test the hypothesis that market concentration and efficiency are significant determinants of bank performance and stability during the time of crises, using a sample of 575 banks in 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The main sources of bank data are the BankScope and BankFocus (Bureau van Dijk) databases, World Bank development indicators, and official websites of banks in MENA countries. This study combined descriptive and analytical approaches. We utilize a panel dataset and adopt panel data econometric techniques such as fixed/random effects and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator.

The results reveal that market concentration negatively affects bank profitability, whereas improved efficiency further enhances bank performance and contributes to the banking sector’s overall stability. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that during the COVID-19 pandemic, bank stability strongly depended on the level of market concentration, but not on bank efficiency. However, more efficient banks are more profitable and stable if the banking institutions are Islamic. Similarly, Islamic banks with the same level of efficiency demonstrated better overall financial performance during the pandemic than their conventional peers did.

The main limitation is related to the period of COVID-19 pandemic that was covered in this paper (2020–2021). Therefore, further investigation of the COVID-19 effects on bank profitability and risk will require an extended period of the pandemic crisis, including 2022.

This study provides information that will enable bank managers and policymakers in MENA countries to assess the growing impact of market concentration and efficiency on the banking sector stability. It also helps them in formulating suitable strategies to mitigate the adverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our recommendations are useful guides for policymakers and regulators in countries where Islamic and conventional banking systems co-exist and compete, based on different business models and risk management practices.

The authors contribute to the banking stability literature by investigating the role of market concentration and efficiency as the main determinants of bank performance and stability during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study is the first to analyze banking sector stability in the MENA region, using both individual and risk-adjusted aggregated performance measures.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused financial stress and limited their lending agility, resulting in more non-performing loans (NPLs) and lower performance during the II wave of the coronavirus crisis. Therefore, it is essential to identify the risky factors influencing the financial performance of Indian banks spanning 2018–2022.

Our sample consists of a balanced panel dataset of 75 scheduled commercial banks from three different ownership groups, including public, private and foreign banks, that were actively engaged in their operations during 2018–2022. Factor identification is performed via a fixed-effects model (FEM) that solves the issue of heterogeneity across different with banks over time. Additionally, to ensure the robustness of our findings, we also identify the risky drivers of the financial performance of Indian banks using an alternative measure, the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) model.

Empirical evidence indicates that default risk, solvency risk and COVAR reduce financial performance in India. However, high liquidity, Z-score and the COVID-19 crisis enhance the financial performance of Indian banks. Unsystematic risk and systemic risk factors play an important role in determining the prognosis of COVID-19. The study supports the “bad-management,” “moral hazard” and “tail risk spillover of a single bank to the system” hypotheses. Public sector banks (PSBs) have considerable potential to achieve financial performance while controlling unsystematic risk and exogenous shocks relative to their peer group. Finally, robustness check estimates confirm the coefficients of the main model.

This study contributes to the knowledge in the banking literature by identifying risk factors that may affect financial performance during a crisis nexus and providing information about preventive measures. These insights are valuable to bankers, academics, managers and regulators for policy formulation. The findings of this paper provide important insights by considering all the risk factors that may be responsible for reducing the probability of financial performance in the banking system of an emerging market economy.

The empirical analysis has been done with a fresh perspective to consider unsystematic risk, systemic risk and exogenous risk (COVID-19) with the financial performance of Indian banks. Furthermore, none of the existing banking literature explicitly explores the drivers of the I and II waves of COVID-19 while considering COVID-19 as a dependent variable. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to make efforts in this direction.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to determine the significant difference between the performance of the Indian banks in pre coronavirus disease (COVID 19) and post COVID 19 periods. Further, it explores the impact of COVID 19 on the profitability of the Indian banks by investigating variation between the non-performing assets (NPAs) and the net profit of the banks during pre and post COVID 19 periods.

Need of the study: The COVID 19 outbreak has affected various industries including Indian banks which reported an increase in NPAs, and demand for credit which in turn impacted profitability. This study was carried out to examine the impact of COVID 19 outbreak on Indian banking sector.

Methodology: This study uses different banks’ NPA and net profits performance to examine the effect of COVID 19 on banks’ overall performance. The data have been collected from secondary sources, commercial websites, and websites of Indian banks (private and public sectors). t-Test was used to analyse the data.

Findings: Among public sector banks, Canara Bank was found to have a significant difference in net profit in the pre and post COVID 19 periods. In private sector banks, HDFC Bank showed a significant difference in the net profit in pre and post COVID 19 periods. For NPAs, all private banks showed no significant difference in pre and post COVID 19 period results.

Implications: The study revealed that both private and public sector banks in India were mildly affected by pandemic and most of them are significantly reporting no difference in net profit and NPAs during pre and post COVID 19 periods.

The paper aims to provide insights into the influence of COVID-19 on employee engagement and ergonomics in the banking sector. The purpose of this study is understood from the perspective of impact of the pandemic on banking employees.

Data for the study are collected from the employees working in the banking sector of India. The study applied the partial least squares (PLS) method of analysis to understand the relationship between employee engagement and ergonomics in the banking sector.

The findings of the study suggest results with regards to change in the perception of the employees in the bank and its influence on the work ergonomics due to pandemic. The findings indicate that banks need to develop measures and strategies for improving employee engagement programs and work ergonomics at banks.

The study is confined to the banking employees working in a specific region. Therefore, future research could focus more on the influence of Covid-19 on the organizational culture of the banking system and provide insight into this direction of research.

This study provides directions for human resource management for developing effective practices for improving the performance of the employees in the banking sector.

This study offers support to the banking sector by providing insights into how it can improve the working environment and, thereby, enhance working in the banking sector.

This is the study that attempts to provide insights into how ergonomics is important for working in the banking sector, especially during a pandemic. The findings provide important implications for the banking sector and improve work ergonomics.

Financial inclusion can be proxied by banking status. The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential effects of financial capability on the financial fragility of US adults with various banking statuses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study utilized the 2021 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) dataset to investigate the relationship between financial capability and financial fragility among consumers with different banking statuses. The analysis controlled for employment shocks, health shocks and other consumer characteristics. Banking statuses included fully banked, under-banked (utilizing both banking and alternative financial services) and unbanked individuals. Logistic regression analyses were conducted on both the entire sample and subsamples based on banking statuses.

The results showed that financial capability was negatively associated with financial fragility. The magnitude of the potential negative effect of financial capability was the greatest among the fully banked group, followed by the underbanked and unbanked groups. Respondents who were underbanked or unbanked were more likely to experience financial fragility than those who were fully banked. Additionally, respondents who were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic were more likely to experience financial fragility than those without employment shocks. The effect size of financial capability factors was greater than that of COVID-19 shock factors. These results suggest that higher levels of both financial capability and financial inclusion may be effective in reducing the risk of financial fragility.

This study represents one of the first attempts to examine the potential effects of financial capability on financial fragility among consumers with various banking statuses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this study offers new evidence to determine whether COVID-19 shocks, as measured by health and employment status, are associated with financial fragility. Additionally, the effect size of financial capability factors is greater than that of COVID-19 shock factors. The results from the 2021 NFCS dataset provide valuable insights for banking professionals and public policymakers on how to enhance consumer financial wellbeing.

This study aims to examine the joint impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government response on the performance of Islamic and conventional banks.

Data were collected from a sample of 94 conventional and 14 Islamic banks in Indonesia from March 2020 to September 2021. The system generalized methods of moments estimation is used to analyze the data.

This study finds robust results regarding the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the positive effects of government responses to COVID-19 pandemic on bank performance in Indonesian banking. Moreover, in line with the rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases, a higher government policy responses index improves bank performance, both in conventional and Islamic banks.

This paper highlights the importance of the government policy responses index to absorb the negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on banking performance.

This paper provides novel insights into the joint impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and government responses to COVID-19 pandemic on bank performance between conventional and Islamic banks.

Banking industry is synonymous to larger dividend payment compared to other sectors. The complexity of dividend policy is further exacerbated by the occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic. This research is aimed to test the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on dividend policy relevance to firm value (FV). FV is measured by firm market value (MV) and TOBINSQ. Meanwhile, dividend policy is measured by dividend payout ratio and dividend yield ratio. This research used Indonesian Banking Companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange Period 2018–2022. This research does not find a significant impact of dividend policy on FV and supports Irrelevance Theory, both for pre-COVID-19 pandemic and during COVID-19 pandemic. However, this research finds differing significant impact on each bank’s common equity tier that reflects the dynamic expectation imposed by the market for each common equity tier. This research also finds a more profound negative and significant impact of dividend policy on FV for state-owned banks compared to private banks. Furthermore, banking-specific performance measurement like a non-performing loan (NPL) and capital adequacy ratio (CAR) consistently impacts the banks’ FV.

This paper aims to investigate the efficiency and performance of the Islamic banking industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors used a two-stage data envelopment analysis to first estimate the efficiency of 78 Islamic banks (IBs) across 15 countries for the 2005–2020 period (a total of 782 bank-year observations) and then to examine their determinants, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors found that the Islamic banking industry performed at a moderate level during the 2005–2020 period, providing evidence that IBs are resilient to the financial shocks created by COVID-19. The authors also found that bank-level characteristics (such as bank size) and country-level characteristics (such as inflation) can contribute to the bank’s operational efficiency.

The results of this study suggested that banking management and government macroeconomic policy, especially in terms of precautions and continuous support, are important for IBs to improve their performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the efficiency and performance of IBs amid COVID-19.

This study aims to determine how Basel III capital requirements affect the stability of Islamic banks globally during the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The secondary data for all Islamic banks worldwide from 2004 to 2021 is obtained from the FitchConnect database. The main technique was a two-step generalized method of moment (GMM) system, and the data were tested using pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects and difference GMM models for robustness checks.

Regression results support the moral hazard hypothesis based on evidence that both the total capital ratio and the Tier 1 capital ratio have a statistically significant positive impact on the stability of Islamic banks globally. Furthermore, neither the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 nor COVID-19 (2020–2021) significantly impacted the stability of Islamic banks worldwide. The results are robust across alternative measures of stability, capital buffers, dummy variables and estimation techniques. According to the descriptive statistics, the number of Islamic banks that disclose their regulatory capital ratios to the public has increased over the study period, and the mean of total capital and Tier 1 ratios are considerably greater than what is required by Basel II and Basel III.

Bankers, regulators and policymakers should benefit from the evidence on capital and risk management in Islamic banking according to Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and Islamic financial services board (IFSB) international standards in various jurisdictions.

This research builds on earlier studies that were both beneficial and instructive by exploring the relationship between BCBS and IFSB capital guidelines and the trustworthiness of Islamic banks in greater depth. This study uses numerous capital ratios, buffers and stability measures to provide an international context for research on Islamic banking. In addition, the database is up-to-date to include information about the COVID-19 pandemic aftereffects in the year 2021. This study also introduces the Basel membership of Islamic banks to provide context for countries still at the Basel II stage or are yet to begin implementing the Basel III international standard.

The chapter aims to investigate the link between COVID-19 and Islamic finance, investigating how Islamic countries respond to the impact of the pandemic and how Islamic banks have responded in consideration of their financial statements. The study proposes a novel perspective based on thematic analysis of blogs and newspapers to validate the relevant literature. Moreover, the documentary analysis will allow researchers to investigate Islamic banks' financial statements. We find that Islamic countries have used extraordinary Sukuk issuances both at government and cross-border level. Moreover, traditional instruments such as the Zakat have been converted for even more social uses. Concerning the literature, we find that there have been temporary tax suspensions and commodity supply measures to deal with the pandemic crisis's uncertainty. Finally, financial statements analysis reveals prudent behaviour with decreases in profits aimed at increasing risk provisions. The results provide theoretical evidence to researchers and practical evidence to policymakers, public policy investors and citizens.