Evaluation of Macedonia Banks' Credit Policies Before and After the 2008 Crisis: A Comparative Study

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the banks` credit policies in Macedonia in comparison to the developed countries before and after the 2008 crisis. In particular, it assesses the credit policies and whether and how the policies were amended following the global recession. In this regard, we formulate two research questions which we tend to analyze based on the collected data. The research is based on a quantitative approach using interviews with senior and middle credit managers from twenty banks in Macedonia, SEE and USA to analyze the changes in their credit policies. The results provide the following findings: 1) The credit policies of the Macedonian banks are more conservative than those of foreign banks in both observed periods; and 2) The financial crisis impacted the credit policies of all observed banks, yet the impact is stronger within the SEE and the USA banks. The obtained results might be of interest for ongoing improvement of the banks` credit and risk management, as well as for the policy makers to prevent future financial crises.