The diffusion of financial innovations: an examination of the adoption of small business credit scoring by large banking organizations

Financial innovation has been described as the “life blood of efficient and responsive capital markets.” Yet, there have been few quantitative investigations of financial innovation and the diffusion of these new technologies. Of the latter, there have been only three prior quantitative studies, and all three used the same data set on automated teller machines! ; This paper makes a significant contribution to the financial innovation literature by examining the diffusion of a recent important innovation of the 1990s: banks’ use of credit scoring for small business lending. The authors examine the responses of 95 large banking organizations to a survey that asked whether they had adopted credit scoring for small business lending as of June 1997 (56 had done so) and, if they had adopted it, when they had done so. The authors estimate hazard and tobit models to explain the diffusion pattern of small business credit scoring models. Explanatory variables include several market, firm, and managerial factors of the banking organizations under study. ; The hazard model indicates that larger banking organizations introduced innovation earlier, as did those located in the New York Federal Reserve district; both results are consistent with expectations. The tobit model confirms these results and also finds that organizations with fewer separately chartered banks but more branches introduced innovation earlier, which is consistent with theories stressing the importance of bank organizational form on lending style. Though the managerial variables signs are consistent with our expectations, none yields significant results.Credit scoring systems ; Financial modernization ; Commercial loans ; Bank loans

The Diffusion of Financial Innovations: An Examination of The Adoption of Small Business Credit Scoring by Large Banking Organizations

Financial innovation has been described as the "life blood of efficient and responsive capital markets." Yet, there have been few quantitative investigations of financial innovation and the diffusion of these new technologies. Of the latter, there have been only three prior quantitative studies, and all three used the same data set on ATMs! This paper makes a significant contribution to the financial innovation literature by examining the diffusion of a recent important innovation of the 1990s: banks' use of credit scoring for small business lending. We examine the responses of 95 large banking organizations to a survey that asked whether they had adopted credit scoring for small business lending as of June 1997 (55 had done so) and, if they had adopted it, when they had done so. We estimate hazard and tobit models to explain the diffusion pattern of small business credit scoring models. Explanatory variables include several market, firm, and managerial factors of the banking organizations' under study. The hazard model indicates that larger banking organizations innovated earlier, as did those located in the New York Federal Reserve district; both results are consistent with our expectations. The tobit model confirms these results and also finds that organizations with fewer separately chartered banks but more branches innovated earlier, which is consistent with theories stressing the importance of bank organizational form on lending style. Though the managerial variables' signs are consistent with our expectations, none yields significant results.Credit Scoring; Small Business Lending; Financial Innovation; Technology Diffusion

The Diffusion of Financial Innovations: An Examination of the Adoption of Small Business Credit Scoring By Large Banking Organizations

Financial innovation has been described as the "life blood of efficient and responsive capital markets." Yet, there have been few quantitative investigations of financial innovation and the diffusion of these new technologies. Of the latter, there have been only three prior quantitative studies, and all three used the same data set on ATMs! This paper makes a significant contribution to the financial innovation literature by examining the diffusion of a recent important innovation of the 1990s: banks' use of credit scoring for small business lending. We examine the responses of 95 large banking organizations to a survey that asked whether they had adopted credit scoring for small business lending as of June 1997 (56 had done so) and, if they had adopted it, when they had done so. We estimate hazard and tobit models to explain the diffusion pattern of small business credit scoring models. Explanatory variables include several market, firm, and managerial factors of the banking organizations' under study. The hazard model indicates that larger banking organizations innovated earlier, as did those located in the New York Federal Reserve district; both results are consistent with our expectations. The tobit model confirms these results and also finds that organizations with fewer separately chartered banks but more branches innovated earlier, which is consistent with theories stressing the importance of bank organizational form on lending style. Though the managerial variables' signs are consistent with our expectations, none yields significant results

Relationship Lending and Denovo Banks: An examination of Bank Lending to Small Farm Borrowers

In this paper we examine the lending by small banks to small farms. We find that relationships, as measured by the length of tenure of farm operators, are positively related to bank lending. We also find that denovo banks have a positive tendency to lend to small farms, similar to the tendency of denovo banks to lend to small businesses generally. When existing relationships between borrowers and incumbent lenders are stronger, however, denovo banks have greater difficulties in lending to small farms. Finally, we find that, even within the category of small banks, lending to small farms (as a percentage of a bank's assets) tends to decrease as the bank increases in size. We believe that small farms are a category of small enterprises that have been underresearched in the lending literature and that further study of these relationships would yield new and interesting results

Relationship Lending and Denovo Banks: An examination of Bank Lending to Small Farm Borrowers

In this paper we examine the lending by small banks to small farms. We find that relationships, as measured by the length of tenure of farm operators, are positively related to bank lending. We also find that denovo banks have a positive tendency to lend to small farms, similar to the tendency of denovo banks to lend to small businesses generally. When existing relationships between borrowers and incumbent lenders are stronger, however, denovo banks have greater difficulties in lending to small farms. Finally, we find that, even within the category of small banks, lending to small farms (as a percentage of a bank's assets) tends to decrease as the bank increases in size. We believe that small farms are a category of small enterprises that have been underresearched in the lending literature and that further study of these relationships would yield new and interesting results

Bank performance and executive pay: tournament or teamwork

We investigate the relationship between the dispersion of executive pay and bank performance/valuation by examining two competing theories, the tournament theory (hierarchical wage structure) and the equity fairness theory (compressed wage structure). The key variable of executive pay dispersion is measured using a hand-collected dataset composed of 63 banks from OECD countries and 29 banks from developing countries. The dataset covers the period 2004 to 2012. By combining and modifying a translog profit function and a pay-dispersion model, we are able to address the potential problems of relying on reduced-form estimation. In our subsample of developed and civil law countries, where bank performance is measured by either Tobin’s Q or by the price-to-book ratio, the overall impact of executive pay dispersion is mostly negative, and we find supporting evidence for the equity fairness theory, except for very high levels of dispersion. There is a non-linear effect, as banks perform best when there is either very low or very high executive pay dispersion. For developing country sample banks, greater executive pay dispersion has a negative impact on bank profit. In our subsample of common law countries, however, we find no evidence of a significant impact of executive pay dispersion on bank performance. We conclude that lower executive pay dispersion, a proxy for teamwork, is mostly effective in enhancing bank performance in a significant section of sample banks, i.e., civil law and developing countries