Paper Title
Is Income Diversification Beneficial for Thai Banking?
Abstract
Abstract - This paper aims to analyze how income diversification impacts on bank performance of nine commercial banks in Thailand. This study also examines thoroughly the impact of this diversification strategy on large bank size and the financial crisis period. All data are collected from disclosed financial reports between 2003 and 2019 quarterly. This study employs a panel regression model and one-step GMM. Our empirical research shows that income diversity provides positive benefits for ROA and LNZ-index for Thai banking. Nevertheless, banks gain more benefits by increasing non-interest income (NII). Likewise, a higher proportion of non-interest income components such as FEE and TRAD is good for ROA in all conditions. However, OTHER provides a significant impact on ROA only when it is included during the post-crisis period. In addition, LNTA harms the ROA. Also, ETAR provides positive and significant impacts on LNZ-index and DTAR has a positive effect on ROA. Meanwhile, the post-crisis period has a positive impact on ROA and LNZ-index suggesting these banks are better off after the financial crisis of 2008.
Keywords - Bank Profitability, Bank Risk, Income Diversification, and One-Step GMM.