The Impact of Credit Information Sharing in Banking Sectors

Abstract

This thesis provides an analysis of the economic consequences of information sharing among banks about information on their borrowers, so-called “Credit Information Sharing”. Particularly, our research objectives are to assess the impact of credit information sharing on bank lending, bank risk, and bank-specific stock price crash risk. Our main data sources include the Bankscope database, Datastream, IFRS Foundation website, Deloitte, the World Bank’s Doing Business database, the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database (WDI), the World Bank’s Global Financial Development database (GFDD), the World Bank’s Banking and Supervision Survey database. Our sample consists of banks around the globe during the period of 2005-2013. For the empirical investigation throughout the thesis, we employ a panel model and perform bank fixed (within) effects estimation augmented with time dummies. In addition, we provide several robustness tests, which include alternative measures, additional controls, a subsample analysis and an instrumental variable approach.

In chapter 2, we investigate the impact of credit information sharing on bank lending for 16,009 banks in 113 countries during 2005-2013 and the finding shows that bank lending increase with more credit information sharing. In addition, by assessing two–way interactions in the regression, we find that such impact is less pronounced with more transparent information environment and stronger creditor protection. In chapter 3, we examine the impact of credit information sharing on bank risk for 15,558 banks in 105 countries during 2005-2013 and we discover that more credit information sharing reduces bank risk. Moreover, by evaluating two-way interactions in the regression, the finding reveals that such impact is less pronounced with more transparent information environment and more pronounced with more competitive banking markets. In chapter 4, with the sample of 1,402 listed-banks in 55 countries during 2005-2013, we explore the impact of credit information sharing on bank-specific stock price crash risk and the result notably shows that more credit information sharing via public credit registries has a negative impact on a stock price crash risk. Furthermore, by considering two-way interactions in the regression, such impact is less pronounced with more transparent information environment and more pronounced with weak regulatory environments in banking sectors.

Our findings suggest that policymakers should strive to achieve effective and efficient credit information sharing schemes to promote healthy and well-functioning banking sectors. As information sharing bridges the information gap between banks and their borrowers, banks are thus willing to extend more credit. Not only enhancing credit availability, banks become more stable and less likely to hoard negative information with a greater degree of credit information sharing.