| Pub. Date | :Nov, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Product Name | : The IUP Journal of Bank Management |
| Product Type | : Article |
| Product Code | : IJIT11911 |
| Author Name | : Norman Adu Bamfo |
| Availability | : YES |
| Subject/Domain | : Finance |
| Download Format | : PDF Format |
| No. of Pages | : 40 |
This study investigates the profitability of banks in 41 African countries for the period 2004 to 2013 at different levels of credit information sharing using the depth of credit information index to measure the extent of credit information sharing in Africa. A fixed effects regression model was employed on unbalanced panel data from the Bankscope Database. The results indicate that credit information sharing through private credit bureaus significantly matters in enhancing bank profitability, while other bank-specific factors such as capital adequacy, credit risk and management/operational efficiency also significantly explain the variations in the profitability of banks in Africa. Government measures and policies are needed to provide an enabling financial environment that harnesses private information sharing to accelerate growth and improve bank profitability.
Financial intermediation through the banking system plays a pivotal role in the growth and
development of most economies (Schumpeter, 1911), in that, the various functions that banks
perform, such as mobilization of savings, evaluation of projects, resource allocation, management
of risk, monitoring of managers and facilitation of transactions (Easterly and Levine, 1997),
cannot be overemphasized.
Hitherto, research (see Nissanke and Aryeetey, 2006; Flamini, 2009; Francis, 2013; and
Fosu, 2014) on bank profitability in the region of Africa has been a concern, attracting
considerable and further attention among scholars, academics and practitioners (Fujii et al.,
2014). The significance of financial institutions and their stability is due to their ability to
mitigate problems of economies of scale in information gathering and the allocation of risks
under asymmetric information (Agenor, 2000).