Asset Securitization and Risk: Does Bank Type Matter?

This study is among the first attempts to tests for the relative differences between Islamic and conventional asset securitizations on bases of bank’s capitalization and risk (credit risk and liquidity risk) during two evidential crises, financial crisis (2007-2009) and the political crisis (2011-2012). We employ GMM estimation for uniquely constructed data for global asset securitization of commercial banks in 22 countries in the years 2003 to 2012, data of 672 global banks (4889 year-observations). We find that on average, securitized banks are less capitalized but more liquid than non-securitized banks. Islamic banks (IBs) involved in securitization hold higher quality loan portfolios and are more prudent but less liquid than securitizing conventional banks (CBs). We find no relative differences between the two sectors with respect to capitalization. Results are robust during the financial crisis. Additional tests, distinguishes between retained and non-retained interests for asset securitizations to test whether the level of control of the securitizing assets affect banks’ risk and capital adequacy. We find that non-retain interests by banks over securitization indicate significantly high prudence by banks however; this is associated with lower liquidity Our results are of importance to both local and international regulators as well as different stakeholders in banks. The bank type does not matters but the relative size of retained interests to the total issuance is that matters because it shows that there is impact on credit risk. Constrained model of IBs do not improve their liquidity though but helped with loan portfolio.