This study is the first to employ an econometric model to examine the pricing behaviour of British financial institutions with respect to key bank products/services offered to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) including current accounts, investment accounts, business loans, and mortgages. A mean group approach is used on a panel of monthly data to gauge individual banks’ reactions to identify factors influencing the setting of deposit and loan rates, and to assess the competitive structure that best describes the UKs SME banking market. Though the results should be interpreted with caution, the empirical evidence is suggestive of a complex oligopoly. Policies directed at improving information and making it easier for small businesses to change banks/accounts would reduce inertia and improve competition among financial institutions.

The Building Society Act, 1986, allowed British building societies to convert from mutual to plc bank status – quoted on the stock market. Eight mutuals converted in the period 1995–2000. This study examines the pricing behaviour of the converted mutuals and remaining building societies to address the question of whether a change in ownership structure caused managers of the new stock banks to place profit/shareholder concerns ahead of the interests of the customer/owners of mutual building societies. Econometric tests using monthly interest rate data (1995–2001) on deposit products and mortgages confirm that managers began to set prices which would improve profits, at the expense of depositors and mortgagees. Deposit/mortgage rates were found to be permanently lower/higher post-conversion, the converts responded more rapidly to changes in the market rate of interest, and the new banks offered proportionately more rip-offs than the remaining building societies.

This paper has several objectives. The first is to explore the type (or types) of imperfect competition that prevailed in the retail banking sector in the 1990s. A general linearised pricing model is employed to test for the degree to which competition in certain markets deviated from the competitive ideal. The key finding, is that, with the exception of mortgage products, deposit and loan rate setting by UK financial institutions is best described by the Salop–Stiglitz model of monopolistic competition, with bargain and rip-offs. Cournot type behaviour is evident in some cases. Indirectly, the presence of perfect contestability is largely ruled out. Another objective is to compare these findings with the results of a similar study conducted nearly a decade ago, when financial reforms introduced to encourage greater competition were relatively recent. Based on the results of this study, the policy lesson is that financial firms exhibit different types of price setting behaviour depending on the banking product. The policy implication is to require firms to produce comparable information for consumers, thereby helping to contain the loss of consumer surplus in imperfectly competitive markets.

This paper investigates the relationship between market structure and performance in China’s banking system from 1985 to 2002, a period when this sector was subject to gradual but notable reform. Using panel data estimation techniques, both the market-power and efficient-structure hypotheses are tested. In addition, the model is extended to consider issues such as the impact of bank size/ownership and whether the big four banks enjoy a “quiet life”. On average, X-efficiency declined significantly and most banks were operating below scale efficient levels. Estimation of the structure–performance models lends some support to the relative market-power hypothesis in the early period. The reforms had little impact on the structure of China’s banking sector, though the “joint stock” banks became relatively more X-efficient. There was no evidence to support the quiet-life hypothesis, probably because strict interest rate controls prevented the state banks from earning monopoly profits. Thus the ongoing liberalisation of interest rates should be accompanied by reduced concentration. Overall, to improve competitive structure, new policies should be directed at encouraging market entry and increasing the market share of the most efficient banks.