This paper analyses how the introduction of the IRB approach may have affected banks' lending to enterprises, lending margins and portfolio quality in Norway. Our results show that the IRB banks' lending margins decreased compared with the standardised approach banks following the introduction...

Operating costs in the Norwegian banking sector have been reduced considerably in recent decades, both as a share of income and assets. This has increased banks' resilience to increased losses and reduced the risk of crises. In this article, I analyse how costs have been reduced and the main...