Interest spread of the Pakistan’s banking industry has been on the rise for the last two years. The increase in interest spread discourages savings and investments on the one hand, and raises concerns on the effectiveness of bank lending channel of monetary policy on the other. This study examines the determinants of interest spread in Pakistan using panel data of 29 banks. The results show that inelasticity of deposit supply is a major determinant of interest spread whereas industry concentration has no significant influence on interest spread. One reason for inelasticity of deposits supply to the banks is the absence of alternate options for the savers. The on-going merger wave in the banking industry will further limit the options for the savers. Given the adverse implications of banking mergers for a competitive environment, we argue that to maintain a reasonably competitive environment, merger proposals may be subjected to review by an antitrust authority with the central bank retaining the veto over merger approval.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics in its series PIDE-Working Papers with number
2007:22.
Length: 18 pages Date of creation: 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:pid:wpaper:2007:22
Contact details of provider: Postal: Quaid-i-Azam University Campus, P.O.Box 1091, Islamabad-44000 Phone: (92)(51)9206610 Fax: (92)(51)9210886 Email: Web page: http://www.pide.org.pk More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Irfan Shakeel).
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: