A Fuzzy Based Early Warning System to Predict Banking Distress on Selected Asia-Pacific Countries

Abstract

This study develops an early warning system (EWS) to prevent the banking crisis. The proposed system incorporates both the perspective of crises and fundamental characteristics of the banking system in each economy. A fuzzy logic method with data from 1990-2009 is employed to construct the EWS of banking crisis based on 21 pre-determined variables from the aspect of total economy, financial and banking sectors. Our results show: Firstly, South Korea recorded higher probability to have a banking crisis in 1997 as there was large foreign debt in dollars. Secondly, China, Australia and New Zealand banking systems appear to be vulnerable to the crisis in 2007. The surge of China export, FDIs and booming stock market were signs of a heated economy. Australia with high commodity prices was also vulnerable to crisis. Thirdly, Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand banking systems appear to be exposed to the higher chance of a crisis in 2010. Japan with deflation coupled with expensive yen did not augur well for its export. Overall, the findings show that in Asian Financial Crisis 1997/98 and Global Financial Crisis 2008/09, many economies are exposed to a higher probability of having the crisis and this shows an urgent need of having surveillance in these economies.