Determinants of bank perfomance in Malaysia: Conventional vs Islamic and domestic vs foreign Islamic banks (2006-2010)

Abstract

This paper aims to compare and investigate the performance of Islamic banks against conventional banks, and foreign Islamic banks against domestic Islamic banks in Malaysia for the period 2006 to 2010. The study uses 33 banks in Malaysia comprise of 18 commercial banks, 15 Islamic banks, I 0 domestic Islamic banks, and 5 foreign Islamic banks. Financial ratios of return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are used as dependent variables and independent variables comprise of loan loss provisions to total assets, net loans to total assets, total overheads to total assets, shareholders equity ratio, bank size (total assets), gross domestic products and inflation rate. Descriptive, correlation, multiple regression and test of significance for equality of means analyses were employed to test the hypotheses. In general, the study found that the independent variables respond inconsistently on dependent variables based on type of the banks. Furthermore, the study found that the conventional banks perform better than Islamic banks in term of profitability, size and assets quality. Same goes to domestic Islamic banks where they perform better than foreign Islamic banks in term of profitability, size and asset quality.