IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fednsr/233.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The return to retail and the performance of U.S. banks

Author

Abstract

The U.S. banking industry is experiencing a renewed focus on retail banking, a trend often attributed to the stability and profitability of retail activities. This paper examines the impact of banks' retail intensity on performance from 1997 to 2004 by developing three complementary definitions of retail intensity (retail loan share, retail deposit share, and branches per dollar of assets) and comparing these measures with both equity market and accounting measures of performance. We find that an increased focus on retail banking across U.S. banks is linked to significantly lower equity market and accounting returns for all banks but lower volatility for only the largest banking companies. We conclude that retail banking may be a relatively stable activity, but it is also a low-return one.

Suggested Citation

  • Beverly Hirtle & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2005. "The return to retail and the performance of U.S. banks," Staff Reports 233, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:233
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr233.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr233.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stulz, René M., 1984. "Optimal Hedging Policies," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 127-140, June.
    2. Stiroh, Kevin J. & Rumble, Adrienne, 2006. "The dark side of diversification: The case of US financial holding companies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 2131-2161, August.
    3. Stiroh, Kevin J, 2004. "Diversification in Banking: Is Noninterest Income the Answer?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(5), pages 853-882, October.
    4. Houston, Joel & James, Christopher & Marcus, David, 1997. "Capital market frictions and the role of internal capital markets in banking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 135-164, November.
    5. Beverly Hirtle & Christopher Metli, 2004. "The evolution of U.S. bank branch networks: growth, consolidation, and strategy," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 10(Jul).
    6. Humphrey, David & Willesson, Magnus & Bergendahl, Goran & Lindblom, Ted, 2006. "Benefits from a changing payment technology in European banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1631-1652, June.
    7. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    8. Froot, Kenneth A. & Stein, Jeremy C., 1998. "Risk management, capital budgeting, and capital structure policy for financial institutions: an integrated approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 55-82, January.
    9. J. David Cummins & Richard D. Phillips & Stephen D. Smith, 1998. "The rise of risk management," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 83(Q 1), pages 30-40.
    10. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    11. Demsetz, Rebecca S & Strahan, Philip E, 1997. "Diversification, Size, and Risk at Bank Holding Companies," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(3), pages 300-313, August.
    12. Stiroh, Kevin J., 2006. "A Portfolio View of Banking with Interest and Noninterest Activities," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1351-1361, August.
    13. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2004. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 25-46, Summer.
    14. Slovin, Myron B & Sushka, Marie E & Polonchek, John A, 1993. "The Value of Bank Durability: Borrowers as Bank Stakeholders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 247-266, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stiroh, Kevin J. & Rumble, Adrienne, 2006. "The dark side of diversification: The case of US financial holding companies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 2131-2161, August.
    2. Kevin Stiroh, 2006. "New Evidence on the Determinants of Bank Risk," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 30(3), pages 237-263, December.
    3. Barry Williams & Gulasekaran Rajaguru, 2013. "The chicken or the egg? The trade-off between bank fee income and net interest margins," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 38(1), pages 99-123, April.
    4. Jussi Keppo & Josef Korte, 2018. "Risk Targeting and Policy Illusions—Evidence from the Announcement of the Volcker Rule," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 215-234, January.
    5. Abuzayed, Bana & Al-Fayoumi, Nedal & Molyneux, Phil, 2018. "Diversification and bank stability in the GCC," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 17-43.
    6. Iftekhar Hasan & Heiko Schmiedel & Liang Song, 2012. "Returns to Retail Banking and Payments," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 163-195, June.
    7. Sarah Sanya & Simon Wolfe, 2011. "Can Banks in Emerging Economies Benefit from Revenue Diversification?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 79-101, October.
    8. Cebenoyan, A. Sinan & Strahan, Philip E., 2004. "Risk management, capital structure and lending at banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 19-43, January.
    9. Calmès, Christian & Théoret, Raymond, 2010. "The impact of off-balance-sheet activities on banks returns: An application of the ARCH-M to Canadian data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1719-1728, July.
    10. Jeon, Bang Nam & Wu, Ji & Chen, Limei & Chen, Minghua, 2020. "Diversification, efficiency and risk of banks: New consolidating evidence from emerging economies," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2020-10, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    11. Freixas, Xavier & Loranth, Gyongyi & Morrison, Alan D., 2007. "Regulating financial conglomerates," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 479-514, October.
    12. Tsangyao Chang & Chin-Chih Chen, 2017. "The Impact of Bank Size on Profit Stability in China," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 7(2), pages 1-4.
    13. Hryckiewicz, Aneta, 2014. "Originators, traders, neutrals, and traditioners – various banking business models across the globe. Does the business model matter for financial stability?," MPRA Paper 55118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. de Haan, Jakob & Poghosyan, Tigran, 2012. "Size and earnings volatility of US bank holding companies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3008-3016.
    15. Xi Yang & Michael Brei, 2019. "The universal bank model: Synergy or vulnerability?," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(4), pages 312-327, December.
    16. Baek, Seungho & Bilson, John F.O., 2015. "Size and value risk in financial firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 295-326.
    17. Avramidis, Panagiotis & Cabolis, Christos & Serfes, Konstantinos, 2018. "Bank size and market value: The role of direct monitoring and delegation costs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 127-138.
    18. Chernobai, Anna & Ozdagli, Ali & Wang, Jianlin, 2021. "Business complexity and risk management: Evidence from operational risk events in U.S. bank holding companies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 418-440.
    19. Allen N. Berger & Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Raluca A. Roman, 2017. "Internationalization and Bank Risk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2283-2301, July.
    20. Nguyen, James, 2012. "The relationship between net interest margin and noninterest income using a system estimation approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 2429-2437.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Banks and banking; Retail trade; Bank profits;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:233. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.