Interrelationship between Basel III Regulations, Profitability and Efficiency. An Empirical Analysis of Financial Performance of Islamic and Conventional Banking Sector in Pakistan

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of Basel III regulations on the Islamic and Conventional banking sector of Pakistan. Pakistani banking sector has experienced a lot of changes and it has witnessed a remarkable growth in recent years. One of the main objectives of Basel III regulations was to reduce risk and enhance the profitability and efficiency of banks. The purpose of this study is to examine the empirical relationship between the new regulatory requirements of Basel III and its impact on profitability and efficiency of Islamic and Conventional banks operating in Pakistan over the time period of 2015 to 2020. The in-depth study, evaluates, whether the updating of Basel III from Basel II with new regulations in terms of Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) and Leverage Ratio has a positive or negative effect or shows no effect on bank’s profitability and efficiency of Islamic and Conventional banks operating in Pakistan. By taking proxies and using secondary data collected from financial statements of banks listed in Pakistan Stock Exchange; financial performance has been measured through Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Net Interest Margin (NIM), and financial efficiency through banks Operating Efficiency (OE) and Assets Utilization (AU) ratio. According to the findings, there are statistically significant differences of profitability and efficiency between the two types of banks in Pakistan. The results indicate that Islamic banks in Pakistan stayed unaffected, as a whole; they were already maintaining good Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) and Leverage ratios. The Conventional Banks showed substantial negative association with profitability with high Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) and Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) but positive significant relation in case of Leverage in terms of profitability and stayed almost neutral in terms of efficiency