How do funding diversity and non-performing loans affect bank performance in different economic cycles?

Abstract

This paper aims to study the impacts of bank funding diversity, non-performing loans (NPLs), and business cycles on bank performance. We employ Fixed Effect Models and the two-step system Generalized Method of Moments to examine a sample of 37 Vietnamese banks from 2005 to 2020. Our findings report that a one percentage point increase in the funding diversity index empowers ROA by 0.031 percentage points. Our results indicate that one positive standard deviation of real GDP from the trend calculated by the Hodrick-Prescott filter increases the ROA by 0.004 percentage points. However, a percentage point increase in non-performing loans reduces ROA by 0.075 percentage points. Our findings are also robust in various proxies of bank performance, economic cycles, and FED interest rate cycles. The findings help determine the optimal funding strategy for policymakers and bank managers. These findings suggest that bank managers develop long-term credit policies to control NPLs, improving sustainable performance. Regulators closely monitor macroeconomic factors to maintain banking stability in different economic stages. Our findings align with the diversification theory, trade-off theory, and prior literature.