The Effects of Risks on the Stability of Tunisian Conventional Banks

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of credit risk, liquidity risk, and operational risk on Tunisian bank stability. These major risks continue to threaten Tunisian banks which are still developing traditional activities, despite the exhaustion of the main factors that have long sustained banking intermediation. To do this, we used data from all conventional banks operational during the period 2005-2015 and we used panel data analysis. Empirical results show that the stability of banks is closely linked to factors specific to them. It depends positively and significantly on their profitability and their liquidity risk, and negatively and significantly on their size and the interaction of both credit and liquidity risks. As for the credit risk, it has no significant impact on the stability of banks when the latter is proxied by Z-score (ROE), but it becomes detrimental in the case of Z-score (ROE). These results could be of great importance for bank managers to draw appropriate strategies in order to manage various risks facing their banks, to know how to enhance their profitability, to make adequate restructurings to enlarge their size and to rely on highly qualified managers and staff who know how to coordinate various actions and manage large institutions.