The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on revenue diversification of selected banks in the ASEAN 5 countries

Alma Grace De Vera, De La Salle University, Manila
Adrian Keith Deparene, De La Salle University, Manila
Regina Sofia Ong, De La Salle University, Manila
Jonas Marvin Villar, De La Salle University, Manila

Abstract/Summary

The research focused its problem on finding out the effect of the pandemic on bank activities such as diversification. The research also considered another financial catastrophic event, the 2007 to 2008 financial crisis, and compared the effect of this market crash on the performance of banks during this pandemic (2020) through a Robustness Test. The study conducted a regression analysis for the dependent variables for profitability and risk measured by ROA, ROE and SDROA, SDROE respectively to determine the relationship of profitability and risk to the independent variable which is bank's revenue diversification measured by NNII. The research also conducted a simple regression using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and the NNII to validate the use of NNII. The results of the study indicated that most variables are significant before the pandemic except Deposits which impacts on risk measured by SDROA and Growth which impacts SDROE. The study concluded that Revenue Diversification has a clear impact on banks profitability before the pandemic. In terms of bank profitability, revenue diversification as measured by NNII has a positive, significant impact on bank profitability as measured by ROA; however, this is not the case with ROE since the results show that there is a negative, significant impact for ROE. On the other hand, in terms of bank risks, revenue diversification as measured by NNII has positive, significant impact on bank risk as measured by SDROA while a negative, significant impact on bank risk as measured by SDROE.