Nimesh Salike

Loan-to-Value Policy as a Macroprudential Tool: The Case of Residential Mortgage Loans in Asia

Credit creation in the housing market has been a key source of systemic financial risk, and therefore is at the center of the debate on macroprudential policies. The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is a widely used macroprudential tool aimed at moderating mortgage loan creation, and its effectiveness needs to be estimated empirically. This paper is unique in that it analyzes the effect of LTV on mortgage lending, the direct channel of influence, using a large sample of banks in 10 Asian economies. It uses estimation techniques to deal with the large presence of outliers in the data. Robust-to-outlier estimations show that economies with LTV polices have expanded residential mortgage loans by 6.7% per year, while non-LTV economies have expanded by 14.6%, which suggests LTV policies have been effective.

Determinants of bank’s profitability: role of poor asset quality in Asia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the determinants of Asian banks’ profitability with particular focus on the role of asset quality. This concern has been particularly important as the Basel III imposed more stringent requirements in banking regulation. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses fixed effect estimation for the panel data of the sample that consists of 947 banks from 12 Asian economies over the period of 2001-2015. Findings The authors find that poor asset quality (measured as impaired loans over gross loans) has a significant negative impact on banks’ profitability. Other bank-specific variables – capital adequacy, income diversification and operating inefficiency – are also important determinants. With regard to macroeconomic factors – real gross domestic product growth has most significant influence on the performance of banks. Research limitations/implications The authors also find that the banks operating in non-advanced economies enjoy higher profit margin than banks operating in advanced economies. Practical implications Although the average asset quality in Asian banks improved over the years, governments could promote more competition, particularly in non-advanced economies. Banks in the region are recommended to diversify their income by avoiding over reliance on interest income. Originality/value Although there are prior studies that looked into asset quality, in particular with regard to the European and US experience, to the best of the authors’ knowledge there is no such study that explores cross-country Asian countries. In addition, the other primary determinants of Asian banks’ profitability are investigated. Further, the authors also looked in depth at the performance of the banks in advanced and non-advanced Asian economies.