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The IRB capital requirements of Basel II define the minimum level of capital that the bank has to retain to cover the current risks of its portfolio. The major risk that many banks are facing is credit risk and Basel II provides an approach to calculate its capital requirement. It is well known that Pillar I Basel II approach for credit risk capital requirements does not include concentration risk. The paper aims to propose a model modifying Basel II methodology (IRB) to include name concentration risk.

The model is developed on data based on a portfolio of Greek companies that are financed by Greek commercial banks. Based on the initial portfolio, new portfolios were simulated having a range of different credit risk parameters. Subsequently, the credit VaR of various portfolios was regressed against the credit risk indicators such as Basel II capital requirements, modified Herfindahl Index and a non-linear model was developed. This model modifies the Pillar I IRB capital requirements model of Basel II to include name concentration risk.

As the Pillar I IRB capital requirements model of Basel II does not include concentration risk, the credit VaR calculations performed in the present work appeared to have gaps with the Basel II capital requirements. These gaps were more apparent when there was high concentration risk in the credit portfolios. The new model bridges this gap providing with a correction coefficient.

The credit VaR of a loan portfolio could be calculated from the bank easily, without the use of additional complicated algorithms and systems.

The model is constructed in such a way as to provide an approximation of credit VaR satisfactory for business loan portfolios whose risk parameters lie within the range of those in a realistic bank credit portfolio and without the application of Monte Carlo simulations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of bank ownership structure and ownership concentration on credit risk.

Using panel data on a sample of 88 Chinese commercial banks, with 826 observations over a period of 2003–2018, this study has applied system generalised method of moments regression to examine the impact of bank ownership structure and ownership concentration on credit risk. This study has used two measures of credit risk, which are non-performing loan ratio (NPLR) and loan loss provision ratio (LLPR).

The results show that ownership type (both government and private ownership) exerts a positive and significant impact on credit risk. Measuring ownership concentration using Herfindahl–Hirchmann Index, the results indicate that concentration of ownership in the hands of government has a negative and significant effect on credit risk, whereas private ownership concentration positively impacts credit risk. Overall, the findings suggest that concentration of ownership in government hands reduces risk; however, private ownership concentration exacerbates credit risks. The results are invariant to both measures of credit risk, before and after the financial crisis.

The findings provide useful insight to guide policy decisions in Chinese banks’ lending policies and bank ownership.

Using two ex post measures of credit risk, NPLR and LLPR, and one ownership concentration measure, HHI, this study deepens our understanding on the effectiveness of Chinese banks’ corporate governance reforms on managing credit risks.

This paper aims to analyse the recent changes to the Pillar 2 regulatory-prescribed methodologies to classify and calculate credit concentration risk. Focussing on the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (PRA) methodologies, the paper tests the susceptibility to bias of the Herfindahl–Hirscham Index (HHI). The empirical tests serve to assess the assumption that the regulatory classification of exposures within the geographical concentration is subject to potential misuse that would undermine the PRA’s objective of obtaining risk sensitivity and improved banking competition.

Using the credit exposure data from three global banks, the HHI methodology is applied to the portfolio of geographically classified exposures, replicating the regulatory exercise of reporting credit concentration risk under Pillar 2. In doing so, the validity of the aforementioned assumption is tested by simulating the PRA’s Pillar 2 regulatory submission exercise with different scenarios, under which the credit exposures are assigned to different geographical regions.

The paper empirically shows that changing the geographical mapping of the Eastern European EU member states can result in a substantial reduction of the Pillar 2 credit concentration risk capital add-on. These empirical findings hold only for the banks with large exposures to Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The paper reports no material impact for the well-diversified credit portfolios of global banks.

This paper reviews the PRA-prescribed methodologies and the Pillar 2 regulatory guidance for calculating the capital add-on for the single name, sector and geographical credit concentration risk. In doing so, this paper becomes the first to test the assumptions that the regulatory guidance around the geographical breakdown of credit exposures is subject to potential abuse because of the ambiguity of the regulations.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of regulation and market competition on the risk-taking Behaviour of financial institutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The empirical framework is based on panel fixed effects/random effects specification. For robustness purpose, this study also uses the generalized method of moments estimation technique. This study tests the hypothesis that regulatory capital requirements have a significant effect on financial stability of Islamic and conventional banks (CBs) in the MENA region. This study also investigates the moderating effect of market power and concentration on the relationship between capital regulation and bank risk.

The estimation results support the view that capital adequacy ratio (CAR) has no significant impact on credit risk of Islamic banks (IBs), whereas market competition does play a significant role in shaping the risk behavior of these institutions. This study report opposite results for CBs – an increase in the minimum capital requirements is followed by an increase in a bank’s risk level, which has a negative impact on their financial stability. Furthermore, the results support the notion of a non-linear relationship between banking concentration and bank risk. The findings inform the regulatory authorities concerned with improving the financial stability of banking sector in the MENA region to set their policy differently depending on the level of concentration in the banking market.

This study contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of regulatory reforms (in this case, capital requirements) and market competition for bank performance and risk-taking. In regard to IBs, capital requirements are less effective in requiring IBs to adjust their risk level according to the Basel III methodology. This study finds that IBs’ risk behavior is strongly associated with market competition, and therefore, the interest rates. Moreover, banks operating in markets with high banking concentration (but not necessarily, low competition), will decrease their credit risk level in response to an increase in the minimum capital requirements. As a result, these banks will be more stable compared to their conventional peers. Thus, regulators and policymakers in the MENA region should restrict the risk-taking behavior of IBs through stringent capital requirements and more intense banking supervision.

The practical implications of these findings are that the regulatory authorities concerned with improving banking sector stability in the MENA region should proceed differently, depending on the level of banking market concentration. The findings inform regulators and policymakers to set capital requirements at levels that would restrict banks from taking more risk to increase their returns. They are also important for bank managers who should avoid risky strategies in response to increased regulatory pressure (e.g. increase in the minimum required capital level of 8%), as they may lead to an increase in the level of non-performing loans, and therefore, a greater probability of bank default. A future extension of this study will focus on testing the effect of bank risk-taking and market competition on the capitalization levels of banks in the MENA countries. More specifically, this study will investigates if banks raise their capitalization levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The analysis of previous research indicates that there is no unambiguous answer to the question of whether IBs perform differently than CBs under different competitive conditions. To fill this gap, this study examines the influence of capital regulation and market competition (both individually and interactively) on bank risk-taking behavior using a large sample of banking institutions in 18 MENA countries over 14 years (2005–2018). For the first time in this line of research, this study shows that the level of market power is positively associated with the level of a bank’ insolvency risk. In others words, IBs operating in highly competitive markets are more inclined to take a higher risk than their conventional peers. Regarding the IBs credit risk behavior, this study finds that market power has a limited impact on the relationship between CAR and risk level. This means that IBs are still applying in their operations the theoretical models based on the prohibition of interest.

This study aims to investigate whether ownership compositions effect credit risk profiles of banks prior to and during the financial crisis. In detail, this study examines whether more powerful owners of a bank impact the credit risk profile.

The effects of the ownership structure on credit risk are estimated using credit default swap (CDS) spreads. Therefore, 86 global privately held and publicly listed banks from 23 countries are considered in a panel analysis for the period 2005-2008.

The results indicate that banks with a more concentrated ownership structure tend to be riskier, as they have larger CDS spreads. Furthermore, we observe that bank regulation has a negative impact on banks’ credit risk. Larger banks exhibit significantly lower risk than smaller banks.

These findings are of high relevance for the respective national regulative environment and for the respective financial institutions themselves. Regulatory bodies have to be aware of whether certain ownership compositions lead to a significant risk factor and which risk indicators exhibit the risk more precisely and in timely fashion.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of capital requirements and bank competition on banks' risk-taking behavior in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The study combines both descriptive and analytical approaches. It considers panel data sets and adopts panel data econometric techniques like fixed effects/random effects and generalized method of moments estimator.

Regulatory capital and market competition have different effects according to the bank’s type (Islamic or conventional). The results show that the capital adequacy ratio has a significant impact on the credit risk of conventional banks (CBs) while this effect is irrelevant for Islamic banks (IBs). However, market competition plays a significant role in shaping risk-taking behavior of Islamic banking institutions. Our results indicate that banks with strong market power may pursue risky strategies in the face of increased regulatory pressure (e.g. increased minimum capital requirements). The results were robust to alternative profitability measures and endogeneity checks.

The most important limitation is the lack of data for some banks and years, and this paper had to exclude some variables because of missing observations. The second limitation concerns the number of IBs in the sample. However, this can be overcome by including more countries from MENA and other regions where Islamic banking is a growing phenomenon.

Our findings call for a change in Islamic banking’s traditional business model based on the prohibition of interest. The analysis indicates that market concentration moderates the association between capital requirements and the insolvency risk of IBs but not CBs. Therefore, regulatory authorities concerned with improving financial stability in the MENA region should set up their policies differently depending on the level of banking market concentration. Finally, bank managers are requested to apply a more disciplined approach to their lending decisions and build sufficient capital conservation buffers to limit the impact of downside risk from the depletion of capital buffers during the pandemic.

This study addresses banks’ risk-taking behavior and stability in the MENA region, which includes banks of different types (Islamic and conventional). This paper also contributes to the literature on bank stability by identifying the most critical factors that affect bank risk and stability in the MENA region, which can be relevant in the context of the new global (COVID-19) crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the risks caused by “hazardously immoral” contracts which force external parties to bear significant losses without their consent.

The expectation of substantial future losses raises the question of how investors can become profitable by entering into such risky contracts. The authors investigate the use of such contracts, which obscure the expected cost of failure by not only concentrating risks but ultimately not taking routine charges for predictable, albeit uncertain, future losses. In their investigation, the authors look at a risk concentration strategy and discuss expected profits (losses) under conditions of limited and unlimited liability.

It is found that companies are more likely to minimize losses and maximize profits if they can obtain credit at a low enough interest rate and externalize the majority of the risk. Risks are more likely to be externalized when government and/or international agencies bail out the offending organizations to limit total damages and stabilize the economy.

The main contribution of the paper is to show that a risk concentration strategy can be used to make the overall probability of winning arbitrarily large, even when individual trials have less than a 50 percent chance of obtaining positive profits. The corollary lesson is that credit is valuable, and having substantial credit obtainable at low rates is so valuable that significant gains are probable despite negative expected profits.

The study of credit risk has been of the utmost importance when it comes to measuring the soundness and stability of the banking system. Due to the growing importance of Islamic banking system, a fierce competition between Islamic and conventional banks have started to emerge which in turn is impacting credit riskiness of both banking system.

Using the system GMM technique on 283 conventional banks and 60 Islamic banks for the period of 2006–2017, this paper explores the important impact of size and competition on the credit risk in 15 dual banking economies.

The authors found that as bank competition increases credit risk seems to be reduced. On the size effect, the authors found that big Islamic banks are less risky than big conventional banks whereas small Islamic banks are riskier than small conventional banks. The results are robust for different panel data estimation models and sub-samples of different size groups. The findings of this paper provide important insights into the competition-credit risk nexus in the dual banking system.

The paper is specifically focused on credit risk in dual banking environment and tries to fill the gap in the literature by studying (1) do the Islamic and conventional banks exhibit a different level of credit risk; (2) does competition in the banking system impact the credit risk of Islamic and conventional banks and finally (3) do the big and small banks exhibit similar levels of credit risk.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of loan concentration on the returns of Indonesian banks and examines whether bank ownership types affect the relationship between concentration and returns.

This research uses heuristic measures of concentration: The Hirschman–Herfindahl index and Deviation from Aggregated Averages are applied to Indonesian banks across all sectors. The data covers the pre and post global financial crises periods from 2003-2011 for 109 commercial banks in Indonesia. Panel feasible generalised least squares analysis was applied.

The findings show that loan concentration increases bank returns. The positive effect of concentration on returns tends to be more significant for domestic-owned banks. In addition, the interaction effect shows that the positive effect of concentration on returns is less for foreign-owned banks.

The Indonesian central bank changes to the reporting format of sectoral loan allocation by banks since 2012 in terms of the Indonesian Banking Statistics Details of Enhancement matrix requires separate data analysis for 2012 onwards. The findings of this paper could be enhanced by more detailed data like interest rate expenses and bank level sectoral non-performing loans data.

The findings suggest that a focus strategy provides better returns. Moreover, bank ownership types is an important factor to consider when setting a bank lending policy.

This paper is among the few studies where different measures of loan concentration in combination with measures of return are applied in Indonesia as an emerging Asian country. The research also provides evidence of the impact of concentration on the interest earnings of the loan portfolios of banks in addition to return on assets and return on equity that are generally applied as measures of return in previous research.