Using a newly collected annual data on banking indicator for 143 banks of the 14 French Zone African countries member over the period 2003-2013, I recently undertook to assess qualitatively and quantitatively the level of resilience of the banking sector to macroeconomic shocks and highlight some major alternative policies that could be implemented.
For this purpose, I have presented an empirical literature review followed by a panel-based econometrics study has been investigated.
The main result from the analysis was that, the sub region banking sector is relatively vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks. Accordingly, the decrease of GDP per capita growth rate, long-term financing and real exchange rate as well as the increase of interest rate leads to lower bank provisions. Lower levels of short-term financing induce a lower level of net income commission, while the change in interest rates is an increasing factor. The influence of changes in interest rates on bank's interest margin remains ambiguous.
These results confirm the necessity of taking into account the existence of macroeconomic shock constraints in the implementation of financial policies in the sub-region. The findings of this work are original in the manner it bridges some knowledge gaps of shock management in the monetary zone. It can offers policy makers two main insights: the potential rewards to timely intervening to mitigate potential shocks and; the need of better control for the credibility and sustainability of the banking system.
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