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A new approach to measuring universal banking
Author(s) -
Shabani Mimoza,
D'Avino Carmela
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
bulletin of economic research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.227
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-8586
pISSN - 0307-3378
DOI - 10.1111/boer.12261
Subject(s) - diversification (marketing strategy) , profitability index , market liquidity , business , metric (unit) , economics , econometrics , monetary economics , financial system , finance , marketing
Noninterest income is widely used in the literature to account for the degree of the universal business model by banks. This paper proposes a novel measure of universal banking constructed using the relative contribution of each operating segment to total assets using an entropy approach. We here propose a novel dataset containing the Universal Banking Index (UBI) at both country and bank levels. Using a sample of international banks, we evaluate the extent to which our proposed metric affects banks’ profitability, stability, liquidity and capitalisation. Results suggest that a higher degree of diversification is associated with increased stability. In addition, banks that feature a more diversified business model, as proxied by the UBI, are also better capitalised, as opposed to banks with high noninterest income share. Our results suggest that regulatory‐induced restriction on universal banking may indeed reduce the benefits of risk sharing across operating segments, exposing banks to heightened risks.