commercial banks

  • 详情 Does social media make banks more fragile? Evidence from Twitter
    Using a sample of U.S. commercial banks from 2009 to 2022, we find that the flow of non-core deposits, rather than that of core deposits, becomes more sensitive to bank performance as banks receive increased attention on Twitter. This effect is particularly pronounced during periods of poor bank performance, when Twitter discussions are more influential, and for banks with more liquidity mismatch. Our results suggest that social media, rather than merely disseminating information about bank performance, makes depositors aware of their peers’ attention to banks, thereby intensifying the sensitivity of deposit outflows to weak fundamentals.
  • 详情 The e-CNY as a Cure for Small and Medium Enterprise Financing Obstacles? Based on Modelling and Simulation of Evolutionary Game Dynamics
    The e-CNY, with its information transparency and financial inclusion, activates an innovative solution to cure the financing obstacles among the small and medium enterprises in China. The research establishes a game model between enterprises and commercial banks embedded in information asymmetry, and incorporates the e-CNY payment choice within the framework to analyse the cure effect of e-CNY on enterprise financing obstacles. With equilibrium results calculated, it simulates the outcomes of changing parameters on the behaviours of enterprises and banks. The findings involve that, based on the incremental utility of e-CNY and subsidies attached, e-CNY is preferred in transaction, reducing the bad debt risk caused by misalignment when both achieving excess returns. The People’s Bank of China must strengthen a more transparent publicity of e-CNY and structure an inclusive system of financial regulation to well use digital currency and realise high-quality socio-economic development.
  • 详情 Unveiling the Role of City Commercial Banks in Influencing Land Financialization: Evidence from China
    Local financial development is crucial for advancing regional financial supply side structural reform, enabling local governments to leverage financial instruments to effectively mobilize land resources and foster competitive growth. The introduction of numerous financial products linked to land-related rights and interests has resulted in a pronounced transmission and interconnection of fiscal and financial risks across regions. This study examines the impact of local financial development on land financialization in China using panel data from prefecture-level cities and detailed information on land mortgages. The findings indicate that the establishment of city commercial banks (CCBs) contributes to the progress of land financialization by incentivizing local government financing vehicles to participate in land mortgage financing, increasing the transfer of debt risks to the financial sector. Notably, the impact of CCBs on land financialization is more pronounced in regions with urban agglomeration, high GDP manipulation, inadequate local financial regulation, and robust implicit government guarantees. Further analysis reveals that CCB establishment has negative spillover effects on land financialization in neighboring areas, while expansion strategies such as establishing intercity branches, engaging in cross-regional mergers, and relaxing regulations have mitigated the rise of land financialization at the regional level. This study provides policy recommendations that focus on reducing local governments’ reliance on land financing and enhancing the prevention and management of financial risks.
  • 详情 Does digital transformation enhance bank soundness? Evidence from Chinese commercial banks
    Compared to previous literature on external FinTech, this paper is more interested in the role played by bank FinTech. Based on panel data from Chinese commercial banks spanning 2010 to 2021, this paper investigates the impact of digital transformation on bank soundness and its potential mechanisms. The empirical findings demonstrate a positive association between digital transformation and bank soundness, driven primarily by strategic and management digitization. Mechanistic analysis indicates that digital transformation improves bank soundness by mitigating risk-taking behavior and promoting diversification. The positive effect of digital transformation is more pronounced in state-owned and joint-stock banks, banks with higher liquidity mismatch as well as in sub-samples with greater levels in external FinTech development and economic policies uncertainty. Additional analysis suggests that digital transformation can still enhance bank soundness even in the presence of relatively easy monetary and macroprudential policies, highlighting the harmonization and complementarity between internal innovation from digital transformation and external regulatory policies in maintaining banking stability. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature on bank FinTech, factors influencing bank stability. And it also provides a novel explanation for the relationship between financial innovation and financial stability.
  • 详情 How Does Foreign Equity Participation Affect the Risk-Taking of Chinese Commercial Banks: The Role of Equity Checks and Balances
    This study examines how foreign equity participation affect risk-taking of commercial banks using Chinese bank-level data from 2012-2020. Our analysis is based on strategic alliance theory and principal-agent theory, and we find that banks with foreign equity participation exhibit a significantly lower risk-taking compared to those without foreign equity participation, and this finding is shown to be consistent in a series of robustness tests. Additional analysis shows that equity checks and balances reinforce this negative relationship. Furthermore, we document that the incidence of such effects is more pronounced for Chinese banks which are smaller and less based on income diversification. Our results suggest that the proportion of foreign equity participation should be moderately increased to form equity checks and balances.
  • 详情 Does Trade Policy Uncertainty Increase Commercial Banks’ Risk-Taking? Evidence from China
    This paper aims to investigate the transmission mechanism through which trade policy uncertainty (TPU) impacts bank risk-taking via firms’ capital market performance. The research reveals that TPU significantly affects firms’ capital market performance, leading to reduced stock liquidity, increased stock price crash risk, decreased stock price synchronicity, and lower stock returns. These effects are transmitted to bank risk-taking, resulting in an overall increase in banks’ passive risk-taking and a decrease in their willingness to undertake active risk-taking. Furthermore, we discover that the impact of TPU on bank risk-taking varies across different categories of firms, revealing heterogeneity in this transmission process. This study uncovers the critical mechanism through which TPU propagates in financial markets, offering important theoretical insights and policy implications for understanding and managing financial risk.
  • 详情 Market Interest Rate Derivatives, Interest Rate Fluctuation and Maturity Transformation Function of Commercial Banks - Evidence from China's Listed Commercial Banks
    Interest rate liberalization in China intensifies the exposure of commercial banks' interest rate risks and further increases the difficulty for commercial banks to effectively control interest rate risks, thus putting forward higher requirements for the normal operation and management of commercial banks. With the development of China's financial derivatives market, banking institutions begin to use basic interest rate derivatives to hedge interest rate risks. It is very important to give full play to the maturity transformation Function of commercial banks to enhance the ability of financial services to the real economy. Based on the semi annual unbalanced panel data of 37 listed banks in A-share stock markets from 2006 to 2020, this paper empirically tests the impact of the use of off balance sheet interest rate derivatives on the Maturity Transformation Function of banks in the case of interest rate fluctuations. The empirical results show that: (1) the use of interest rate derivatives helps to weaken the negative impact of interest rate fluctuations on the Maturity Transformation Function of banks. (2) The analysis of the mechanism shows that the use of interest rate derivatives improves the stability of the bank's asset side term structure and liability side term structure, so as to support the effective play of the bank's financial intermediary role. (3) Further analysis shows that the of interest rate derivatives significantly reduces the volatility of bank earnings. This study makes it clear that the use of interest rate derivatives has a positive impact on the commercial banks, which provides evidence for the further development of interest rate derivatives market in China.
  • 详情 Does Competition Reduce Moral Hazard in the Credit Market? Evidence from China's Rural Commercial Banks
    We examine the dynamic connection between competition and bank risk within the credit market through the lens of moral hazard affecting banks and borrowers. By combining the perspectives of “competition-fragility” and “competition-stability”, we reveal the intricate influence that competition exercises over bank risk in this financial landscape. Our research scrutinizes these theoretical constructs empirically, drawing upon a dataset comprising 236 rural commercial banks in China from 2012 to 2020. The findings indicate a curvilinear relationship between competition and bank risk, as an inverted U-shape. Furthermore, competition plays a dual role - it improves borrowers’ moral hazard dilemma while exacerbating it for banks. This highlights both riskshifting and risk-margin effects within the competitive dynamics. Ultimately, the nonlinear association between competition and bank risk emerges due to the intricate interplay between the moral hazard factors affecting borrowers and banks.
  • 详情 Green Credit Policy Incentives and Green Practices in China
    Taking the prevalence of the global green development concept and China's green credit development practice as the background, this paper constructs a theoretical model analysis framework with the incentive policy of green credit as the entry point. First, the impact effect of green credit incentive policy is examined using the BVAR model. The results show that the green credit incentive policy suppresses the output level in the short run through the financing constraint channel, but has a positive contribution to output in the long run due to the adjustment of the production structure and the dynamic adjustment of green investment and R&D. Next, the paper constructs a DSGE model embedded with green credit fiscal and tax incentive policies, which explains the impact mechanisms and comparative effects of fiscal and financial policies driving green credit. The model shows that the re-guarantee policy is the most effective and consensual green credit incentive policy. In terms of the policy combination, the combination of the re-guarantee policy and the income tax policy is the current optimal policy pairing, and its policy is able to produce an amplification effect through the balance sheet channels of commercial banks and enterprises at the same time. In addition, a certain intensity of the above policy combination not only can effectively increase the scale of green credit, but also does not produce significant negative shocks to output and inflation. In summary, the findings of this paper provide a useful reference for the formulation and implementation of green credit incentive policies.
  • 详情 Macro-Prudential Policy, Digital Transformations and Banks’ Risk-Taking
    Macro-prudential policy plays a crucial role in stabilizing the financial system and influencing banks' risk preferences and willingness to take risks. This study examines the influence of macro-prudential policies on bank risk-taking using unbalanced panel data from 126 commercial banks in China between 2010 and 2021. The difference-in-differences model is employed to analyze the data. The empirical findings demonstrate that implementing macro-prudential policies in China effectively enhances bank risk prevention measures. In other words, macro-prudential policy implementation facilitates the digital transformation of banks and subsequently reduces risk-taking behaviors. Moreover, the heterogeneity test reveals that macro-prudential policies have a more significant impact on the risk-taking behavior of commercial banks with higher capital adequacy ratios compared to those with lower ratios. Additionally, commercial banks with strong interbank dependence exhibit more pronounced effects on their risk profiles when subjected to macroprudential policies with stricter capital supervision requirements. Therefore, this study proposes policy recommendations for strengthening bank capital supervision through differentiated approaches, serving as a valuable reference for the regulatory authorities.