In a newly liberalized credit market, foreign banks with cost advantages are likely to be less informed than domestic banks that hold information on credit risks. These relative advantages may generate incentives for a foreign bank to negotiate acquisition of a domestic bank in order to capture information endowments. However, if it is difficult to assess the value of information held by banks, the foreign bank will face important choices about the optimal mode of entry and what acquisition price to pay. These choices have implications for the survival of domestic banks and how capital is allocated after liberalization.

Using a unique dataset that matches banks with their client firms, we investigate the differences between foreign and domestic banks in a developing country. In particular, we are interested in examining how foreign banks solve the information asymmetries that characterize lending relationships and whether those relationships have changed since the financial crisis of 2008. Foreign banks are likely to limit their lending activity to larger firms or more transparent firms because they are at an informational disadvantage relative to domestic banks. We find that foreign banks focus on relationships with foreign, listed, and larger firms. In addition, their portfolio is more heavily weighted towards firms in less competitive industries and exporting firms. Comparing outcomes for 2006 and 2009, we find that banks are more concerned with leverage in 2009 and have reduced the number of firms in their portfolio post-crisis.

We examine the impact of ownership on income diversification and risk for Indian banks over the period 2001–2009. We investigate both the determinants of non-interest income and the impact of diversification on various profitability and insolvency risk measures for public sector, private domestic, and foreign banks. We document that ownership does matter in the pursuit of non-interest income. Relative to private domestic banks, public sector banks earn significantly less fee-income, while foreign banks report higher fee income. Public sector banks with higher levels of governmental ownership are significantly less likely to pursue non-interest income sources. Fee-based income significantly reduces risk, measured by profitability variables, for public sector banks. Default risk is also reduced for these banks. From a regulatory perspective, it appears that diversification benefits India’s public sector banks. Our research has implications for the changes in the risk profile for banks in emerging banking markets pursuing non-interest revenue sources.