Multinational banks dominate the banking sectors in Central- and Eastern European countries and are an important partner for the domestic real economies. The aim of this paper is to examine the risk-return variations of these financial institutions in different macroeconomic stages in and around the global financial and economic crisis. The capital adequacy ratio (CAR) is used as a representation of the overall risk a bank is exposed to. The question is if a change in GDP growth implies a reciprocal change in CAR of a bank and if a change in CAR leads to a reciprocal change in net income. In addition, it will be tried to assess the consistency of the risk strategies of different subsidiaries of the same banking group. To conduct the research CAR is firstly derived as a suitable holistic risk measure in the theoretical part of this paper. Then, in the empirical part a case study is carried out that comprises the Czech and Slovak subsidiaries of four multinational banking groups and that is designed for the time horizon from 2008 to 2010. Qualitative as well as quantitative methods are applied.

Between 2007 and 2009, taxpayers paid $700 billion to bail out failing U.S. banks. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that leaders of a successful U.S. bank used to identify efficiency changes occurring during the financial crisis. The target population of this study included 6 bank leaders located in San Bernardino, California, who occupied a managerial role in a successful U.S. bank during a financial crisis, had experience with the efficiency changes that occurred during a financial crisis, and developed and implemented strategies to identify efficiency changes that took place during a financial crisis. The conceptual framework for this study was the theory of economic efficiency. Data consisted of semistructured interviews, annual fiscal reports, and proxy statements. All interpretations of the data were subjected to member checking to ensure trustworthiness of interpretations. Yin's method of qualitative data analysis was adopted, which consisted of five sequential steps: compiling the data, disassembling the data, reassembling the data, interpreting the meaning of the data, and drawing conclusions from the data. Based on the methodological triangulation of the data collected, 3 of the main themes that emerged were management strategies, application of digital technology, and growth maximization and risky loan elimination. The implications for positive social change include the potential to avoid bank failures in the future, resulting in a stronger and more robust economy, thus sparing taxpayers the burden of bailing out failing banks.

L’interdépendance entre les différents métiers de la banque s’est considérablement renforcée au cours des deux dernières décennies. En effet, la globalisation financière a accru la porosité entre les différents métiers bancaires notamment lors de chocs qui bien qu’initialement circonscrits sur un segment de l’activité des banques contaminent maintenant rapidement la santé financière globale des banques. Cet état de fait est étayé par la crise des subprimes. L’échec de la réglementation bancaire révélé à travers la crise financière globale nous oblige à réexaminer le régime réglementaire en vigueur et à accorder une grande importance aux réformes réglementaires dans le système bancaire. Cette thèse a pour objectif d’identifier les carences de la réglementation bancaire et d’analyser les pistes de réforme réglementaire pour remédier à ces lacunes du régime réglementaire actuel. Ce travail de thèse fournit des évidences empiriques sur le fait que la mise en œuvre conjointe d’une stratégie de levier élevé et d’une stratégie de liquidité risquée a déstabilisé les banques au cours des années récentes. Les réglementations futures doivent donc s’orienter vers la complémentarité entre la réglementation de la capitalisation et la réglementation de la liquidité. En accord avec ces résultats empiriques, ce travail de thèse propose finalement un cadre théorique pour montrer que la prise en compte de la réglementation de la liquidité en tant que le complément de la réglementation de capitalisation est socialement optimale. / The interdependence between different banking businesses has significantly increased over the past two decades. In fact, financial globalization increased the porosity between banking businesses in the case of shocks that rapidly infects the global financial health of banks, although they were initially limited to one segment of banking activities. That was shown by the Subprime crisis. The failure of banking regulation, as the global financial crisis demonstrated, is forcing us to review the existing regulatory regime and to pay attention to regulatory reforms in the banking system. This thesis aims to identify the flaws in the banking regulation and to analyze possible reform avenues. In this study, we provide empirical evidence on the joint use of risky leverage strategy and risky liquidity strategy by banks over the past years. Consequently, the future regulatory reforms have to shift towards the complementarity between capitalization regulation and liquidity regulation. In line with our empirical results, we finally propose a theoretical framework in order to establish that implementing liquidity regulation, as complement to the actual capitalization regulation is socially optimal.