A Perspective on the Impact of the Deposit Taking Institutions Act On
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A PERSPECTIVE ON THE IMPACT OF THE DEPOSIT TAKING INSTITUTIONS ACT ON BANKS IN SOUTH AFRICA Town BY: ARI HUGHCape JACOBSON of Univesity A mini-masters dissertation supervised by Dr Hugh High and assisted by Mr Tony Leiman. The 1.lt'iver~,it; of C?.~E! Town hris been given the rift~:t t.~~ ; nr.lr·Jd!.f.~(' tr1: _.; :-~v~ ;in i il t~".iholo 4 1 or tn par! C·j1 : "ili~lf !~ h:.!d ~·1°{ th .1 \i~ith'.'!r. , . ~~-~-....~P'J.--T';':.'.".·~~.~ ........')t(;'···(~!\~·-:-~.-1 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the Universityof of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. Univesity "Ttt£ PROC£SS AT f1NANC1At lNSTlTVTJONS, TO }v(ATCtt SAV£RS VVITtt 1NV£STORS, THOVGtt S££MlNGtY TRlVlAt, lS TH£ MOST lMPORTANT ASP£CT Of £CONOM1C D£V£tOPM£NT". From the 1991 Frank M Engle Lecture of The American College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA. CONTENTS PREFACE 1-5 CHAPTER 1:- THE HISTORY OF WORLD BANKING 6-14 1.1 . Early History 6-9 1.2. A Revolution in Contemporary banking 9-11 1.3. Deposit Insurance 11-14 CHAPTER 2:- SOUTH AFRICAN BANKING AND THE ARRIVAL OF THE DTI ACT 15-23 2.1. Early History 15-17 2.2. The DTI Act 17-23 2.2.1. Discount Houses 17-18 2.2.2. Building Societies 18-19 2.2.3. Banks 19-20 2.2.4. Off-Balance Sheet Activities 20 2.2.5. Moneybrokers 20 2.2.6. Reserve Requirements 21 2.2.7. Permissable Bank Holdings 22-23 CHAPTER 3:- A CRITIQUE OF BANK THEORY 24-39 3.1. Deposit Insurance Theory 24 3.2. Modern Intermediation Theory 25-26 3.3. Boyd-Runkle Study 26-29 3.4. Merger Theory 29-33 3.5. Bank Performance Analysis 33-36 3.5.1. Fundamental Analysis 33 3.5.2. Technical Analysis 34 3.5.3. Problem of Smoothed Earnings 35-36 3.6. Public Policy Impact 36-37 3.7. Organisational Structure Theory 37-39 CHAPTER 4:- TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS THAT THE DTI ACT ENCOURAGED THE TREND TOWARDS BIGGER BANKS IN SA 40-48 4.1. Introduction 40 4.2. The Bank Sample 40-41 4.3. Survey of Big Banks 41-45 4.3.1. Standard Bank Investment Corporation 41-42 4.3.2. First National Bank 42-43 4.3.3. Nedcor 43-44 4.3.4. Amalgamated Banks of SA 44-45 4.4. Survey of Medium to Small Banks 45-47 4.4.1. Investec Bank 45-46 4.4.2. Rand Merchant Bank 46 4.4.3. NBS Bank Group 46-47 4.4.4. Boland Bank 47 4.5. Conclusion 47-48 CHAPTER 5:- TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS THAT BIG BANKS ARE BETTER PERFORMING BANKS THAN SMALL BANKS 49-69 5.1. Introduction to Bank Shares 49-52 5.2. Interest Rate Cycle 52-53 5.3. Testing Bank Performance in SA 53-67 5.3.1. Measuring Individual Bank Performance 53-63 5.3.1.1. Commentary on the Graphs 56-63 5.3.2 Comparison of Big Banks vs Small Banks 63-67 5.3.2.1 Commentary on the Graphs 64-67 5.5. Conclusion 67-69 BIBLIOGRAPHY 70-78 TABLES:- 5. 1. The PE Ratios and Gross Advances of Big Banks 55 5.2. The PE Ratios and Gross Advances of Small Banks 56 5.3. Mean Big Bank Ratios and Gross Advances from 1988 to 1992 64 5.4. The Mean of Small Banks PE ratios and Gross Advances from 1988 to 1992 64 FIGURES:- FIG 1: Number of failed US Institutions, 1980 - 1989 12 FIG 2: Banks Index vs Financial and Industrial Index between 1960 - 1992 50 FIG 3:- Individual Gross Advances vs PE Ratios 57-61 3(a) 1988 57 3(b) 1989 58 3(c) 1990 59 3(d) 1991 60 . 3(e) 1992 61 3(~ Comparison of Big Banks vs Small Banks between 1988 - 1992 65 1 PREFACE The primary objective of this mini-thesis is to show that the new banking legislation, which was implemented in South Africa in February 1991, as the Deposit Taking 11 11 Institutions Act of 1990 [hereinafter DTl ], encouraged the trend towards larger financial institutions in South Africa. A further aim of this thesis is to find a variable that best represents a financial institution's performance and to use this measure to determine a relationship, if any, with an individual bank's size. The test is to be conducted utilising a sample of South African banking institutions. The concept of size versus performance has been considered often in myriad studies of financial institutions worldwide. However, it should be noted that studies regarding the performance of the banking industry in South Africa, are virtually non-existent. In Chapter 1, a brief history of world banking trends will be discussed, while in Chapter 2 we will deal with bank developments in South Africa, including an in-depth study of the DTI Act. In Chapter three, we survey banking literature and note particularly the methodologies employed in analysing the relevance of performance indicators, and the criterion used, to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of a financial institution. It is shown that at least fifty studies, between 1990 and 1993 have purported to demonstrate, inter a/ia, the influence of government regulation on banking performance, economies of scale at banks, benefits associated with inter bank mergers, as well as the results of bank and non-bank mergers. Contemporary studies of the banking industry have also employed a variety of 2 measurement techniques to evaluate a bank's performance. This has entailed various approaches ranging from fundamental analysis to more sophisticated programming methodologies. Moreover research has attempted to discern the optimal level of efficiency, at an individual financial institution. The underlying objective of this mini-thesis is to reveal whether big banks perform better than small banks in South Africa. Here it is hypothesised that legislation, in the form of the DTI Act, has in fact given rise to bigger banks. Yet there is evidence, [Boyd and Runkle(1993)], that bigger banks are not better performing banks. Following in part from Boyd and Runkle, the performance criterion to be used, herein, is the price earnings (PE) ratio, while size is determined by gross advances. The aim of this enquiry is to look at an individual bank to gauge a relationship, if any, between size and performance. The expectation is that the bigger the bank the higher its PE ratio, because there is clear support for bigger banks in the DTI Act, as will be argued in Chapter 2 & 4. We utilise data from a sample of small South African banks and compare their performance with a sample of large South African banks. All the banks analyzed are publicly listed companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The rationale for using the PE ratio was suggested by Robert C. Jones [(1991) (27)]. 11 It was found that ••• the price earnings ratio of a particular bank measured against some propriety evaluation, was the most effective discriminator for the bank industry ... " . Similarly Mary Barth et al [(1992) (42)] argued that an internal evaluation 3 11 of a bank using a profitability variable was fraught with problems ••• because of the practice at institutions, of smoothing an earnings performance ... ". Therefore the most acceptable performance measure, it was argued, would come from an external evaluation. Barth's observation provides further support for the use of the price earnings ratio, as it is an externally-orientated performance measure. South African bank data has historically been difficult to obtain because of limited financial disclosures. On the other hand external data has been fairly accessible. South African banks have, until fairly recently, disclosed minimal financial information in their interim and annual financial statements. In some cases at smaller banks, an essential item such as earnings was never disclosed, until as late as 1990. The DTI Act enforces stricter disclosures and now regulates disclosure policies. The limitation associated with data availability, has enhanced the case for utilising openly obtainable bank data, such as the PE ratio and gross advances. Various methods have also been tried for presenting the data but in the end we settled on the approach of adopting a graphic representation, since the limited data size of the SA bank sample restricted the number of statistical techniques that could be employed. In this study, each individual bank's performance is plotted for the period, 1988 to 1992 and then an average sample of big banks and an average sample of small banks are compared over the same period. This is illustrated in Chapter 5. The period observed has relevance, even with the limitations attached to the sample size. This period represented a time when financial institutions began operating with 4 a view to the more rigorous legislative guidelines to follow, based on the DTI Act. In addition, the loosening of other laws, such as merger and acquisition legislation, allowed bank management and its shareholders to reveal their preference in relation to bank size. This is discussed in Chapter 4. Support can also be gathered for the fact that the South African Reserve Bank, under whose auspices bank supervision presently falls, seemingly prefers larger financial groupings, as is noted in Chapter 2. The results lead to the conclusion that "niche" banks or more correctly "a niche focus" is the most effective strategy in the banking industry.