Search

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unimaginable effect on global economies and threatens the efficiency and growth trajectory of the banking sector. The pandemic has disrupted the primary operations of the banking sector, as banks were compelled to close physical branches to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Given the importance of the banking sector to economic development, understanding the consequences of COVID-19 on efficiency and growth trajectory of this sector is crucial for ensuring its sustainability. By drawing data from annual reports of 13 publicly quoted banks in Nigeria from 2019q1 to 2021q2 (pre and post COVID-19), this study investigates the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on efficiency and growth trajectory of the banking sector. The data obtained were mainly analysed using DEA and LGCM. The DEA results show an upward trend in the average scores of technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency in both periods. The LGCM results reveal a statistically insignificant difference in banks' growth trajectory (rate of change) in both periods. Overall, our analyses suggest that the outbreak of COVID-19 does not threaten the efficiency and growth trajectory of the banking sector. However, the insignificant difference between the pre and post nationwide lockdown suggests that there is an insignificant improvement in the efficiency of the banking sector during the post nationwide lockdown period. These findings offer practical implications for banks, regulators, and policymakers regarding the unprecedented uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid rise and widespread global adoption of cryptocurrencies in recent years has fundamentally transformed the international financial landscape, with digital assets increasingly being recognized for their potential to influence the stability and performance of traditional capital markets. Against this backdrop, this study aims to empirically investigate the impact of cryptocurrency returns on Islamic vs. conventional stock returns in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The salient distinctions between Islamic and conventional stock markets include fundamental differences in principles, investment allocations, and risk profiles, underscoring the importance of examining the impact of cryptocurrency returns on these distinct equity segments. Daily data were collected from stock indices in five GCC countries over the period 2016–2019, including two sub-periods: before and after the 2017 crypto crash. Pooled OLS, fixed effects, random effects, and generalized linear models (GLMs) were used to analyze the data collected during the study. With the GCC increasingly focusing on cryptocurrency markets, there is growing concern about these markets' potential impact on regional stocks. This study addresses the important questions of whether the impacts of the cryptocurrency market on Islamic vs. conventional stock markets differ throughout the GCC region and how these impacts have evolved since the crypto crash period. The findings reveal that cryptocurrency returns had a negative impact on both GCC Islamic and conventional stock market returns for the full sample period (2016–2019), and the negative effect was far more pronounced for conventional stocks. For the two sub-periods before and after the crash, only the cryptocurrency market and conventional GCC stocks remained negatively correlated, while the cryptocurrency market and the GCC Islamic stock markets became uncorrelated. Thus, for the calmer sub-periods before and after the crypto crash, the rise in cryptocurrency returns may have enticed GCC investors away from conventional stocks, perhaps resulting in a decline in their investment in these stocks. Meanwhile, those who invest in Islamic stocks may not be exposed to this temptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]