The determinants of profitability of large-scale and small-scale Turkish deposit banks

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants of the banks' profitability by dividing the Turkish deposit banks into large-scale and small-scale entities. For this purpose, panel data analysis was applied using fixed effects model, based on quarterly data for the period from March 2009 to September 2020 for 24 deposit banks. Return on assets and return on equity are used as a measure of the banks’ profitability. According to the results, the determinants of profitability differ between large-scale banks and small-scale banks. With respect to the bank-specific determinants, the findings show that the equity/assets, deposits/assets and liquidity ratio have significant impact on the profitability of large-scale banks, whereas they have no relationship with the profitability of small-scale banks. The profitability of large-scale banks is negatively affected by their asset quality ratios. On the other hand, while the ratio of loans to total assets has no impact on the profitability of small-scale banks, the non-performing loan ratio has a positive impact. While the asset size and income-expense ratios have positive and significant impacts on the profitability of small-scale banks, they exhibit no relationship with the profitability of large-scale banks. With regard to macroeconomic indicators, small-scale banks’ profitability is negatively affected by economic growth, whilst large-scale banks are not. This study is aimed to contribute to the literature by analysing the determinants of Turkish deposit banks’ profitability under the classification of large-scale and small-scale banks.