This dissertation addresses the question of whether a monopolistic banking system can lead to a higher steady state level of capital stock. Specifically, this research analyzes the comparative advantage of a monopoly banking system. By doing that, it examines factors that contribute to the promotion of economic growth that come from a concentrated banking system. There is substantial evidence of a positive relationship between financial markets development and long term output growth. Little is known, however, about the role played by the market structure of the banking sector on growth. Moreover, little work, if any, has attempted to analyze how the degree of information externality affects the relative performance of a monopoly and competitive banks. I find that a monopoly banking system might perform better in accumulating capital under both low information externality and high information externality under certain conditions. In addition, this paper shows that developing countries as well as industrial countries may benefit from a concentrated banking system. This result is not found in the existing literature, which has only shown that developing countries may benefit from a monopoly banking system. This result can be interpreted as follows: (i) for the developing countries, as the proportion of high quality firms is relatively low, the loss in output associated with lending capital to lower quality firms is relatively high. In this case, the screening technology has enough value-added to compensate for the loss in output associated with the typical rent extraction activity of the monopolist. (ii) for the industrial countries, a monopoly banking system can overcome inefficiency from free riding problem associated with the information externality. This analysis provides an alternative explanation of the recent deregulation and resulting trends in mergers and acquisitions. This supports governments' policy changes from restricting merger and acquisition activity to allowing or even promoting merger and acquisition activity.

This dissertation addresses the question of whether a monopolistic banking system can lead to a higher steady state level of capital stock. Specifically, this research analyzes the comparative advantage of a monopoly banking system. By doing that, it examines factors that contribute to the promotion of economic growth that come from a concentrated banking system. There is substantial evidence of a positive relationship between financial markets development and long term output growth. Little is known, however, about the role played by the market structure of the banking sector on growth. Moreover, little work, if any, has attempted to analyze how the degree of information externality affects the relative performance of a monopoly and competitive banks. I find that a monopoly banking system might perform better in accumulating capital under both low information externality and high information externality under certain conditions. In addition, this paper shows that developing countries as well as industrial countries may benefit from a concentrated banking system. This result is not found in the existing literature, which has only shown that developing countries may benefit from a monopoly banking system. This result can be interpreted as follows: (i) for the developing countries, as the proportion of high quality firms is relatively low, the loss in output associated with lending capital to lower quality firms is relatively high. In this case, the screening technology has enough value-added to compensate for the loss in output associated with the typical rent extraction activity of the monopolist. (ii) for the industrial countries, a monopoly banking system can overcome inefficiency from free riding problem associated with the information externality. This analysis provides an alternative explanation of the recent deregulation and resulting trends in mergers and acquisitions. This supports governments' policy changes from restricting merger and acquisition activity to allowing or even promoting merger and acquisition activity.

Background and problem: Recent banking and financial crises has undoubtedly stressed the importance of a sound and well-functioning banking system. The banking industry is in critical need of strong governance stemming from their opaque and complex business along with the high social costs incurred in the event of bank failure. Previous research has shown that credit rating changes serve as a governance mechanism on the U.S. banking market, affecting real economic decision-making. However, no existing research has been conducted in an European context, rendering the objective of this thesis. Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the governance effects of credit rating changes on banks within the European banking market. Methodology: The objective of this thesis is achieved by using a novel and comprehensive data set comprising credit rating changes and financial accounting variables of 202 banks on the European banking market between the time period 1997-2011. A quantitative method is implemented to examine banks’ financial accounting variables in the event of credit rating changes. In order to measure the isolated effect from a credit rating change, the difference-in- differences econometric approach in combination with a Propensity Score Matching procedure will be conducted. Conclusions: The results from this research provide numerous evidence that credit rating changes have consistent governance effects on the European banking market. In the event of a credit rating downgrade, banks on the European banking market decrease in size and set aside more capital as reserves for non performing loans. In the event of a credit rating upgrade, banks increase in size and re-allocate assets, providing evidence that these banks have a more optimistic view of their financial conditions. The findings in this thesis are in line with previous research on the U.S. banking market, however, banks on the European banking market seems to have, on average, a more conservative attitude towards risk-taking in the event of a credit rating change.

The diploma thesis deals with the analysis of the group Société Générale between 2005-2011. The analysis concentrates on assesment of economic development and efficiency of Société Générale between 2005-2011 as a response to the development in the global economy, including the analysis of the main reasons for its development and analysis of potential risks in future development of the group. The thesis also deals with the development of the French banking market between 2005-2011, its specifics and main players with impact on comparison of these player to Société Générale and on finding the market position for Société Générale.

The diploma thesis analyzes the range of consumers credit in the Czech banking and non-banking market. In the first part, there are basic concepts related to the consumers loans introduced to the reader. Subsequently there are individual companies described according to the offered consumers loan. These knowledge is summarized in tables for better illustration The main goal is to choose the optimal consumers loan for the specific client.. In conclusion to meet the aim of the work the two model examples were used to compare the certain offers on the market.

The main objective of this master thesis is to develop a financial analysis of banking institution Sberbank CZ, Inc., to evaluate the overall effectiveness of its activities and to compare its situation with competing banks. The master thesis is divided into three main parts. The first part focuses on description of methodological and theoretical findings, which are connected with financial analysis. Attention is paid not only to financial analysis and financial indicators, but the author of the thesis also deals with information resources, information duties of banks, financial statements and regulations of the Czech National Bank. The second part is devoted to introduction of chosen banks and description of their main features. The third part focuses on application of reached findings and creating financial analysis of Sberbank CZ, Inc.. Results will be continuously evaluated and also measured with competing banks. In conclusion are presented reached results of financial analysis, on which is evaluated whole financial situation of Sberbank CZ, Inc..

The issue of possibilities of real estate prices assessment for non-banking participants on financial market is solved in my Master’s thesis. The environment of non-banking participants on financial market is essentially defined here including description and division of it. In the survey there are the possibilities of real estate prices assessment together with the recommendation of the applicable methods. The practical part is included into my Master‘s thesis, too. The recommendation is applied here.

<p>The retail banking market in Sweden is highly concentrated and oligopolistic. This has been confirmed by numerous reports from different competition authorities within the EU, for example the Swedish competition authority. A considerably high number of different sorts of competition barriers has been pointed out in these reports. The competition barriers are mainly directed to the smaller banks and the potential competition. The retail banking market in Sweden is dominated by four major banks, which together has over 80 percent of all market shares. These four dominating banks more or less control the payment systems and have a great deal of influence within the payment systems. It is necessary for all banks to be able to take part of the payment systems. The control that the four dominants have over the payment systems has been more significant considering their cooperation in so called infrastructure clubs. It is these clubs that have formed the conditions in every contract between the infrastructure club members and other smaller banks, who wants to be able to provide their customers a diversity of banking services. The dominating banks purpose with this infrastructure cooperation is to lower the network-expenses for the owners and to provide a more effective network-system. According to my results, these infrastructure clubs could help create a harder market climate and higher entry barriers for non-members than what ought to be considered as normal for such a market climate. Smaller banks who want to provide a variety of services, so called full-service banks, meet the hardest obstacles to overcome. Therefore there has not started a new full-service bank since 1993. The almost only payment system which the four dominants do not control is Riksbankens payment system “RIX”. The European commission has many different criteria in their search for different violations of abuse and dominant position. I have used nine of these in my paper. Eight of these criteria were concordant with my results whether or not connections exist to abuse and dominant position. My results have pointed out some problems that could be in dispute with Swedish competition law, considering the market position and the key role the members in an infrastructure club possesses. Despite the fact that detailed decisions from the European court of Justice (ECJ) especially obliges dominants to protect and not to distort competition in any way exists, my opinion is that there could be some parallels to a distorted competition on the Swedish retail banking market. Furthermore, the three different steps within the payment system are represented through the dominants participation when they are members in the same infrastructure club. This gives the result that their cooperation is vertically integrated. The cooperation involves important information about the member’s financial strengths and their ability to compete as a market actor, but also information of great importance of the infrastructure and its development and further efficiency. According to my results, the economical cooperation that the members of the infrastructure clubs have, could not be referred to as an “economic entity” in the same way as the ECJ used it regarding their investigations of collective dominance. The dominants cooperation, according to me, is better described as a collective behavior. The dominants cooperation in these infrastructure clubs could also be of that character as referred to in 6 § konkurrenslagen. I do not consider the payment systems owned by the dominants to have the same character as “essential facilities”, since smaller niched banks have entered the market and thus have chosen other channels than the dominants payment systems to reach their customers. I also have the opinion that every effect caused by the cooperation between the dominants could not be defendable as acceptable objective grounds. Due to the above mentioned arguments, I find it sensible to investigate further whether or not the dominants purpose with their infrastructure club is concordant with its means.</p>

Då stora förändringar skett på den svenska bankmarknaden de senaste 30 åren, dels på grund av den finansiella avregleringen men även som följd av den tekniska utveckligen, har konkurrenssituationen stärkts. Antalet banker som konkurrerar om kunderna har ökat och bankerna måste därför arbeta hårt för att både behålla befintliga samt få nya kunder.Kunderna utsätts regelbundet för marknadsföringskampanjer där de lockas med diverse erbjudanden samt av nya eller utvecklade tjänster. Bankerna försöker finna sätt att tillhandhålla något som kan höja värdet av tjänsten/produkten för kunden.Samtidigt är kunderna på bankmarknaden lojala mot sina banker och förhållandevis få kunder byter bank, oavsett huruvida de är nöjda med den bank de har eller inte. Konkurrensverket gör bedömningen att trots de goda valmöjligheterna för konsumenterna och den starka konkurrensen bland bankerna är konsumentrörligheten väldigt trög i Sverige.Syftet med den här uppsatsen har varit att undersöka vilka preferenser konsumenter värdesätter i valet av sin bank, samt ur ett kundperspektiv beskriva de viktigaste delarna i ett erbjudande. Detta har undersökts genom att kvalitativt datamaterial har samlats in samt analyserats.I undersökningen har vi arbetat utifrån två problemformuleringar som rör vilka betydelsefulla delar som bör ingå i ett bankerbjudande samt vilka kvalitetsfaktorer som är mest betydelsefulla för den enskilda konsumenten. Problemformuleringarna har besvarats utifrån den empiri som samlats in genom kvalitativa intervjuer med nio respondenter.I resultatet kan vi se att endast ett fåtal av respondenterna kan tänka sig att byta bank om de får ett bra erbjudande från en konkurrerande bank. Kunderna värdesätter en hög servicenivå och anser att det är mycket viktigt att kunna ha förtroende samt känna tillit till sin bank.

<p>The main purpose of this study was to investigate which enter- and exit barriers that exist on the banking market for small enterprises located within the region of Gotland. The reason was to examine and identify which barriers that could affect the mobility among small enterprise bank customers on the bank market. To identify the barriers, the study was carried out partly by a quantitative survey with 33 small business owners respondents located at three different concentrated small enterprise areas within the region of Gotland. And partly by qualitative interviews that were conducted with two employees at Länsförsäkringar Gotland Bank.The result indicated that the enter barrier mostly depended on the aspect that business owners of small enterprises believed that bank switching were complicated. The business owners did also consider bank switching as time demanding. These two aspects created a kind of behavior loyalty towards the business owners present bank regardless if they are satisfied or truly loyal. Therefore according to us the banks should focus of removing the business owners thought of complication. The exit barrier we believe banks on Gotland should contemplate to preserve their current customers is satisfaction and relation which creates a loyalty towards the bank.The main purpose of this study was to investigate which enter- and exit barriers that exist on the banking market for small enterprises located within the region of Gotland. The reason was to examine and identify which barriers that could affect the mobility among small enterprise bank customers on the bank market. To identify the barriers, the study was carried out partly by a quantitative survey with 33 small business owners respondents located at three different concentrated small enterprise areas within the region of Gotland. And partly by qualitative interviews that were conducted with two employees at Länsförsäkringar Gotland Bank.The result indicated that the enter barrier mostly depended on the aspect that business owners of small enterprises believed that bank switching were complicated. The business owners did also consider bank switching as time demanding. These two aspects created a kind of behavior loyalty towards the business owners present bank regardless if they are satisfied or truly loyal. Therefore according to us the banks should focus of removing the business owners thought of complication. The exit barrier we believe banks on Gotland should contemplate to preserve their current customers is satisfaction and relation which creates a loyalty towards the bank.</p> / <p>Problemet vi undersökte var vilka barriärer banker kan utnyttja för att öka tillflödet av nya småföretagskunder men samtidigt behålla befintliga småföretagskunder. Syftet med studien har varit att urskilja vilka inträdes- och utträdesbarriärer som existerar för småföretagare på gotländska bankmarknaden. En enkätundersökning genomfördes som innehöll både slutna och öppna frågor. Intervjuer genomfördes med anställda på Länsförsäkringar Gotland med avsikt att undersöka en banks perspektiv avseende existerande barriärer. Den teoretiska referensramen baseras på befintliga teorier som behandlar finansiella och icke- finansiella barriärer där de icke- finansiella baserades på faktorerna; kundnöjdhet, kundrelation och kundlojalitet. Utifrån den teoretiska ramen och det empiriska materialet genomfördes en analys.Analysen visade att de existerande inträdesbarriärerna främst beror på uppfattningen bland småföretagsbankkunder att bankbyten är komplicerade. Tillsammans med att gotländska småföretagare anser att det är tidskrävande att genomföra ett bankbyte renderar i en beteendelojalitet vilket baseras på att småföretagare stannar kvar hos deras nuvarande bank oavsett omfattning av nöjdhet och lojalitet. Den identifierade inträdesbarriären borde åtgärdas då den hindrar småföretagarna att utvärdera andra bankaktörer.Priset lokaliserades som viktigt bland de undersökta gotländska småföretagarna, både för att attrahera och behålla bankens småföretagskunder. Utträdesbarriärer som vi anser banker ska fokusera på för behållandet av befintliga småföretagskunder är kundnöjdhet och kundrelation, vilka båda resulterar i kundlojalitet.Problemet vi undersökte var vilka barriärer banker kan utnyttja för att öka tillflödet av nya småföretagskunder men samtidigt behålla befintliga småföretagskunder. Syftet med studien har varit att urskilja vilka inträdes- och utträdesbarriärer som existerar för småföretagare på gotländska bankmarknaden. En enkätundersökning genomfördes som innehöll både slutna och öppna frågor. Intervjuer genomfördes med anställda på Länsförsäkringar Gotland med avsikt att undersöka en banks perspektiv avseende existerande barriärer. Den teoretiska referensramen baseras på befintliga teorier som behandlar finansiella och icke- finansiella barriärer där de icke- finansiella baserades på faktorerna; kundnöjdhet, kundrelation och kundlojalitet. Utifrån den teoretiska ramen och det empiriska materialet genomfördes en analys.Analysen visade att de existerande inträdesbarriärerna främst beror på uppfattningen bland småföretagsbankkunder att bankbyten är komplicerade. Tillsammans med att gotländska småföretagare anser att det är tidskrävande att genomföra ett bankbyte renderar i en beteendelojalitet vilket baseras på att småföretagare stannar kvar hos deras nuvarande bank oavsett omfattning av nöjdhet och lojalitet. Den identifierade inträdesbarriären borde åtgärdas då den hindrar småföretagarna att utvärdera andra bankaktörer.Priset lokaliserades som viktigt bland de undersökta gotländska småföretagarna, både för att attrahera och behålla bankens småföretagskunder. Utträdesbarriärer som vi anser banker ska fokusera på för behållandet av befintliga småföretagskunder är kundnöjdhet och kundrelation, vilka båda resulterar i kundlojalitet.</p>