Risking or de-risking? The effect of banking competition on large state-owned banks and small and medium-sized enterprise lending: Evidence from China

This study examines the effect of the expansion of small and medium-sized bank branches on large state-owned banks in China based on bank branch-level financial data and detailed loan-level data from 2008 to 2015. We find that the expansion of small and medium-sized banks favorably impacts the operating income of large state-owned banks without intensifying bank risk-taking. Large state-owned banks, used to lack competition, expand their total lending scale to achieve more operating revenue by servicing more firms, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This promotes SMEs' access to finance, while also raising the operating costs of large state-owned banks. More importantly, the lending standards and loan quality of large state-owned banks do not deteriorate, implying that they do not employ risky lending tactics to deal with increased competition.