Economic and Statistical Analysis of Sustainability Indicators of Banking Sectors of the Leading Countries

Abstract

The last decade was characterized by the improvement of the financial systems’ monitoring mechanism at the national and international levels aimed at making effective decisions on financial stabilisation. The purpose of this study is to assess the sustainability of banking sectors of the leading economically developed and developing countries for the period 2009-2018, taking into account the processes occurring in the global economy and international financial markets.The research applied the International Monetary Fund methodology for assessing the stability of depository institutions and used the IMF database containing financial soundness indicators of the banking sectors in the studied countries. The economic and statistical analysis of financial soundness indicators of the banking sectors made it possible to explain the influence of economic conditions on the level and dynamics of the banks’ performance indicators as well as to identify the strengths and problems of the banking systems.The results of the study indicate an increase in the sustainability of the developed countries’ banking sectors, which is confirmed by the growing trends of capital adequacy and the quality of bank loan portfolios. The main problem of the developed countries is stably low profitability which, in the long term, could lead to a decrease in the banks’ capitalisation and their inability to maintain economic growth.A positive trend in the banking sectors of the developing countries is the recovery of capital adequacy, whereas the negative trend is a decrease in the quality of loan portfolios and profitability indicators. High credit risks and insufficient capitalisation represent the vulnerabilities of the developing countries’ banking sectors, while the increased volatility of financial soundness indicators, especially liquidity, is caused by the impact of the external trade and financial conditions.The results of this research could be used by analysts and regulators in macroeconomic calculations and when developing supervisory stress testing models, as well as by bank managers for performing internal stress tests and strategic business planning.