A Look at the Structural Bank Regulation Initiatives and a Discussion over Turkish Banking Sector?

Following the 2007-8 Global Crisis, a significant shift is observed towards the international regulatory approach about the banks. Apart from reform efforts from international institutions such as the IMF, G20 and BIS, several proposals are set forward in some advanced financial systems. Moreover, it is debated that, these so called structural bank reform efforts, also present a chance to indirectly solve the issue of “To-big-to-fail” problem, the SIFI-“systemically Important Financial Institution” problem by its new title. In this study the fundamental characteristics of globally known structural bank reform initiatives are compared and a panel data analysis conducted for the Turkish commercial banks for the 2002-2012 period to investigate the effect of risk diversification on profitability to test for diversification in bank activities.