Service, investment, and risk management performance in commercial banks

Abstract

This article characterizes the production process of commercial banks as three components: service activities, investment-related activities, and risk management activities, and assesses performance for these components, including service efficiency, investment efficiency, and risk management efficiency. With data from 36 Taiwanese commercial banks in the fiscal year 2009, we demonstrated how all the efficiency indices can be estimated. The major empirical findings are that the correlation coefficients between each pair of efficiency indices are positive, so the banks that make an effort in one activity for efficiency improvement could also inspire other activities to improve performance. The non-performing loan ratio can adversely influence efficiency. The establishment of financial holding companies can push the Taiwanese banking system to be more efficient than the privatization reform.

Keywords:

• bank efficiency
• risk management

Acknowledgements

I thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are my responsibility.