Consequences of Basel Accords on Bank Risk-Taking and Profitability: Evidence from Asian Countries

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Basel Accord II on bank profitability and risk-taking in three developing Asian countries; Philippines, Thailand and India over the period 2006–2015. Using panel data, the study methodology is to employ both One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression techniques to explore these relationships. Our empirical results show that Basel II, represented by its three pillars; capital regulatory requirement, official supervisory power and private monitoring and market discipline indices all have a significant negative impact on profitability, which may imply that binding regulations have adverse impacts. Furthermore, capital regulatory requirement and private monitoring inversely impact risk-taking while official supervisory power shows a significantly positive effect on bank risk-taking levels. Concluding that bank regulators must insure that the banks in the three countries strengthen their corporate governance and private monitoring to reduce corruption and enhance performance. Same results are obtained when conducting additional analyses to ensure the validity of the results.