Critical Factors Affecting Bank Management Policies

We suggest some managerial implications following the identification of the determinants of the best efficiency levels achieved by banking groups in the main Euro Area countries in the period 2009-2018, using a cluster analysis. Differently from previous works, this study analyzes the banking groups’ behavior in a particularly interesting period characterized by the sequence of three very different crises: the sub-prime, the sovereign debt and the NPLs crises. The results show that the best performances are linked to a particular business model, to specific managerial decisions, such as the achievement of a medium size along with a rational valuation of the number of firms in the same banking group and to suitable cost rationalization strategies and liquidity reserve optimization policies. All the results obtained support empirical evidences already highlighted in the existing literature.