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Competitiveness and Regulation of Norwegian Banks. by Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, Bent Vale, Morten H. Grindaker and Erling Skanc

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Competitiveness and Regulation of Norwegian Banks. by Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, Bent Vale, Morten H. Grindaker and Erling Skanc A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Ulltveit-Moe, Karen Helene; Vale, Bent; Grindaker, Morten Haabeth; Skancke, Erling Research Report Competitiveness and Regulation of Norwegian Banks Staff Memo, No. 18/2013 Provided in Cooperation with: Norges Bank, Oslo Suggested Citation: Ulltveit-Moe, Karen Helene; Vale, Bent; Grindaker, Morten Haabeth; Skancke, Erling (2013) : Competitiveness and Regulation of Norwegian Banks, Staff Memo, No. 18/2013, ISBN 978-82-7553-781-0, Norges Bank, Oslo, http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2506988 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/210289 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.no www.econstor.eu Nr. 18 | 2013 Staff Memo Financial Stability Competitiveness and regulation of Norwegian banks Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, Bent Vale, Morten H. Grindaker and Erling Skancke Staff Memos present reports and documentation written by staff members and affiliates of Norges Bank, the central bank of Norway. Views and conclusions expressed in Staff Memos should not be taken to represent the views of Norges Bank. © 2013 Norges Bank The text may be quoted or referred to, provided that due acknowledgement is given to source. Staff Memo inneholder utredninger og dokumentasjon skrevet av Norges Banks ansatte og andre forfattere tilknyttet Norges Bank. Synspunkter og konklusjoner i arbeidene er ikke nødvendigvis representative for Norges Banks. © 2013 Norges Bank Det kan siteres fra eller henvises til dette arbeid, gitt at forfatter og Norges Bank oppgis som kilde. ISSN 1504-2596 (online only) ISBN 978-82-7553-781-0 (online only) Competitiveness and regulation of Norwegian banks* Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moea Bent Valeb Morten H. Grindakerc d Erling Skancke 27 November 2013 * We thank Ingvild Svendsen for valuable comments. a University of Oslo b Norges Bank c Morten H. Grindaker was engaged as research assistant in Norges Bank in 2012-2013. d Erling Skancke was engaged as research assistant in Norges Bank in 2012-2013. 1 Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 4 2. The Norwegian banking sector in an international perspective ............................................. 5 2.1. Activity level and growth in the banking sector ............................................................. 5 The size of the banking sector ............................................................................................ 5 The contribution of the financial sector to value added ................................................... 10 Employment in the financial sector .................................................................................. 11 2.2 Profitability in the financial sector ................................................................................. 13 2.3 Compensation in the financial sector ............................................................................. 17 2.4 Cross-country differences in cost efficiency – the case of electronic payment transactions ........................................................................................................................... 18 2.5 Funding structure in the banking sector ......................................................................... 20 2.6 Cross-country differences in market structure ............................................................... 24 3. Norwegian financial sector and banks in a cross-industry perspective ................................ 28 3.1 Activity level and contribution to GDP .......................................................................... 28 3.2 How does remuneration in the financial sector compare to other sectors? .................... 29 3.3 Profitability and equity ................................................................................................... 31 Returns versus equity ratios ............................................................................................. 33 4. Market structure and competition in the Norwegian banking sector ................................... 35 4.1 Market concentration ...................................................................................................... 35 4.2 The nature of competition in the Norwegian banking sector ......................................... 38 Competition from foreign subsidiaries and branches ....................................................... 38 Competition from the bond market .................................................................................. 41 5. Why – and how – banks are regulated ................................................................................. 44 5.1 Why regulate banks? ...................................................................................................... 44 5.1.1 Multiple equilibria when banks borrow short-term and invest long-term .............. 44 5.1.2 Pecuniary externalities ............................................................................................ 46 5.1.3 Moral hazard ........................................................................................................... 48 5.2 Regulatory policies in Norway in a Scandinavian perspective ...................................... 49 5.2.1 Deposit insurance .................................................................................................... 50 5.2.2 Capital regulation .................................................................................................... 51 6. Taxation of the financial sector in Norway .......................................................................... 59 6.1 The tax regime applied to the financial sector in Norway ............................................. 59 Corporate income taxation ............................................................................................... 59 2 VAT .................................................................................................................................. 59 Financial transaction tax ................................................................................................... 60 Stability tax ...................................................................................................................... 60 6.2 Financial sector taxation in other countries .................................................................... 61 Corporate income taxation ............................................................................................... 61 VAT .................................................................................................................................. 61 Financial transaction taxation ........................................................................................... 61 Stability tax ...................................................................................................................... 62 6.3 Financial sector taxation in a national and international perspective ............................. 63 6.4 Implications of the EEA agreement on taxation of the financial sector ......................... 63 7. On the concept of a level playing field................................................................................. 64 7.1 The aim of a level playing field...................................................................................... 64 7.2 For and against a level playing field in banking regulation ........................................... 66 International regulatory spillovers ................................................................................... 67 Different countries – different needs ................................................................................ 68 7.3 Implications for a small open economy ......................................................................... 69 8. Welfare effects of Norwegian bank regulation .................................................................... 70 8.1 Regulatory needs and benefits for Norway ............................................................... 70 8.2 Social costs of relatively stricter domestic bank regulation ........................................... 72 8.2.1 Impact on funding costs .......................................................................................... 72 8.2.2 Impact on product market competition ..................................................................
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