The Interrelationship of Covid-19 Towards Financial Services Sector: Evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

With the outbreak of the pandemic Covid-19 that started in the city of Wuhan, China back in December 2019, the government of Malaysia announced a movement control order (MCO) after there were local active cases recorded in March 2020. Many parties got affected by the MCO implementation from the shutdown of small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to people being prohibited from travelling to the workplace. These shocks had given a huge impact on many industries in Malaysia, mainly the financial services sector. Banks have their hands full in the light of the pandemic since borrowers and businesses are likely to start seeking financial relief due to job losses, slowed sales, and declining profits. Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had taken an initiative as one of the efforts to ensure Malaysia’s financial stability by generating a moratorium for borrowers, those who got affected financially due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. This in turn has affected the volatility of the financial services sector. This study focuses on the interrelationship of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, China, and the United States, as well as Malaysia’s non-performing loans, towards the financial services sector in Malaysia. The method used in this study is multiple linear regression, descriptive analysis, and correlation coefficient. The findings show that all independent variables have a positive relationship and are significant to the dependent variable which was proven by the p-value resulting in less than a 5% level of significance. For further studies, researchers can extend the research by changing the dependent variable from the financial sector to another sector that was affected due to Covid-19.