During the last years the lending business has come under considerable competitive pressure and bank managers often express concern regarding its profitability vis-a-vis other activities. This paper tries to empirically identify factors that are able to explain the financial performance of bank...

Commercial banks in New Zealand do not appear to compete on price for small business clients in terms of the public advertising. An examination of information in the public domain relating to fees associated with aspects of typical SME banking does reveal differences. Fees data are used in a...

This study analyzes the impact of bank relationships on a firm’s cost of debt. We focus on relationships with the main bank. We find that a firm’s cost of debt decreases with relationship strength, proxied by the share of bank debt provided by the main lender, but rises with relationship...