Optimal capital adequacy ratio: An investigation of Vietnamese commercial banks using two-stage DEA

Over the last years the Vietnamese banking system has been struggling to restructure, reform governance, consolidate financial statements and build up merge and acquisition, in line with international standards. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) proposed BASEL III in 2010, whereby banks must increase their minimum Capital Adequacy Ratios (CAR) year by year with a goal of 10.5% by 2019. The objective of this paper is to address the questions: (1) what are the optimal CAR levels for Vietnamese Commercial Banks (2) whether the minimum required CARs stipulated in the Basel II and III are reasonable for Vietnam banking system? The data set consists of a sample of Vietnamese commercial banks over the six-year period from 2010 to 2015. The optimal CARs of banks are calculated using the nonparametric two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model, with two inputs: fixed assets, employee expense and two outputs: interest income, non-interest income. The findings indicate that 92.4% of the banks have the optimal CAR higher than the minimum ratio 10.5% defined in BASEL III. Moreover, 57.98% of the banks should raise their current level of CAR to reach their optimal ones. To conclude, this paper will provide a guideline for Vietnamese banks to decide their optimal CAR to reach the efficiency frontier.