آزمونی برای نظارت موثر بر بازار بانک نیوزیلند

There is a considerable amount of research that seeks to determine the extent to which retail market participants exert market discipline on banks either through the price approach (the correlation of price to risk), or the quantity approach (the movement of funds in response to changes in risk). In this paper we propose and implement a third approach: the retail market conditions approach. We seek to determine if the prerequisites for the exertion of effective market discipline by stakeholder monitors, as set out in Llewellyn and Mayes (2003. The role of market discipline in handling problem banks. Bank of Finland Discussion Papers. <http://www.bof.fi/eng/7_tutkimus/index.stm> (retrieved 13.04.04)), prevail by directly examining conditions that prevail among retail market participants. We find little evidence to support the proposition that they are being met among New Zealand retail depositors.

In addition to providing basic services, such as holding cash and effecting payments among economic agents, a banking system is often considered an important contributor to, or companion of, local economic development. For this reason, and because a safe repository for liquid assets to meet transaction or precautionary needs is widely considered desirable, a stable banking system is similarly considered desirable (cf. Levine, 1997).1 How is this to be achieved? The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (the “Basel Committee”) goes a long way toward answering this question by resting its framework for banking supervision on three pillars: Minimum Capital Requirements; Supervisory Review Process; and Market Discipline (BCBS, 2005, p. 6). The last element can be sub-divided into discipline by wholesale markets and retail markets respectively.

Although the visits conducted in connection with this study reveal that disclosure statements appear to be generally available through bank branches, requests for them do not appear to be a regular occurrence. Only 20% of branches achieved our “Prompt and Standard” outcome. Our branch experience is supported by our survey results which reveal low rates of specifying bank soundness as the most important consideration in bank selection, low awareness of disclosure statements, an even lower incidence of having read them, and a low incidence of respondents specifying disclosure statements as their most important source of information on banks. The apparent lack of interest in bank soundness and disclosure statements may relate to our finding that the majority of respondents perceive there to be some form of government guarantee of retail bank deposits, whether implicit or explicit, partial or full. We do not find support for retail depositors being effective stakeholder monitors relative to the New Zealand banking system. Despite the RBNZ’s intentions to make clear it does not guarantee retail bank deposits, there may be unknown factors standing in the way of credibly asserting this. There is a role for additional research here about whether the perception of some sort of guarantee reflects the fact retail depositors are not receiving the RBNZ’s message, or whether they receive it, but then embark upon some thought process that leads them to erroneously conclude there must be some form of guarantee.